


I'll Find You in the Morning Sun

by Callioope



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Jyn is a nurse but there aren't really any graphic descriptions, Mutual Pining, Nurse Jyn, Slow Burn, spy cassian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 11:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13213017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callioope/pseuds/Callioope
Summary: “Why did you write back?”She stops in her tracks. If she’d thought she’d been surprised before…He continues a few steps before he notices and whirls around, his feet smearing the snow on the pavement.“Why did you write first?”They stare at each other, at an impasse, neither of them willing to disrupt the balance, to take the first step towards a lighter world. Both of them know, at least in some hidden capacity, that something floats between them, something could lift them, could show them how to fly. But they are not dreamers, with their heads in the clouds, and the talk of war weighs heavy on their shoulders. And falling from such a great height hurts; they’ve borne such bruises since they were children.#A World War II AU for csectumsempra, for Rebelcaptain Secret Santa.Told in a series of meetings (or not meetings) each December, spanning 1939 to 1945.





	1. 1939

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csectumsempra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csectumsempra/gifts).
  * Translation into Français available: [Je te trouverai dans le soleil du matin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17895827) by [traitor_for_hire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitor_for_hire/pseuds/traitor_for_hire)



> This is my Rebelcaptain Secret Santa gift to csectumsempra / @cassianserso
> 
> (I am very sorry it has taken me so long to post — I know I am juuust squeezing by the 12am PST deadline of the very last day. I have lots of words? I hope that makes up for it.)
> 
> The prompt was “anything involving mutual pining,” and some prodding Ask Box questions also yielded “i personally love the in-canon universe and WWII AUs for just the…stakes they would have stacked up against them, so that it will always be life and death for these two (grim, but it makes for a sweeping, grand romance imo). and i think their connection grew from the fact that they are both children of wars/revolutions.” 
> 
> So, I took that and ran.
> 
> And here we have a World War II AU spanning seven years. 
> 
> Yes, seven chapters is probably a lot, BUT they are short chapters (for me) and the whole fic comes in under 20k. I almost split it into two chapters instead (pre-war and during-war), but I preferred the more defined split that comes with a chapter break.
> 
> Also, since I was more the memorize-ace-the-test-and-promptly-forget type of student, I remembered very little about World War II. There’s just… so much. So so much. I mean it’s a freaking world war. So I crammed some learning in the span of about two weeks, basically taking a crash course—I mean, literally, I watched John Green’s Crash Courses on WWII. So I’ll admit my research might be lacking. 
> 
> The point is: I am not an expert! World War II is *such* a complex, nuanced era in history. I couldn’t possibly cover everything and so the perspective is limited to the characters’. Please take anything you see here, in the fic or in the author notes, with a grain of salt. And please, if you find anything, I don’t mind if you point it out (be kind!). Also, as a point of note, this is fiction, so there may some “hand waving” for certain things to work. 
> 
> —
> 
> The format:
> 
>   * each chapter takes place in December of the specified year, going from 1939 to 1945
>   * if the actual day of the month matters in the context of the plot, it will be mentioned with the chapter (I think only 1941 and 1944 mention it)
>   * two chapters, 1941 and 1943, are from Cassian’s perspective; the rest are from Jyn’s
> 

> 
> The title is a line from “I’ll Be Seeing You,” a popular song you’ve *probably* heard under any of a multitude of covers, that debuted in a 1938 Broadway musical _Right This Way_. It was popular during the war for pretty obvious reasons, and was featured in the 1944 movie _I’ll Be Seeing You_. 
> 
> Excerpt:
>
>> I'll find you in the morning sun  
> And when the night is new  
> I'll be looking at the moon  
> But I'll be seeing you  
> 
> 
> Here we go!

Jyn pulls her wool coat tighter around her shoulders as she shuffles along the sidewalk. 

Above her, large snowflakes float in the orange glow of the streetlamps; she ignores them. A few shoppers linger, hurrying past her just as fast in the other direction; she ignores them, too. A taxi honks, tires squeal, a man yells; all of it, she ignores.

It’s background, the blur of Manhattan she’s grown so used to since she first moved here ten years ago.

(That’s a story she ignores, too.)

The only object of her focus: the red neon light, curling out in cursive letters, “Woe Bonnie,” marking the hole-in-the-wall Irish pub and her destination. A strange choice, to be sure, but one of the few places she could keep her head down these days without running into—former acquaintances. (She’s put that past far behind her.)

She wraps her bare, red fingers around the golden handle for the door and pulls it open, stumbling in with a gust of cold air and flurry of snow. A few people look up as she enters, but none of them match the face she’s looking for, so she hurries further in.

A lady on stage croons something about “down in the depths of the ninetieth floor”; she tunes that out, like everything else, and shoulders her way to the bar.

A larger woman shoves her back, nearly knocking her off her stool.

“Watch it,” Jyn says back, pushing her way back in.

“You watch it,” the woman said, shoving her again.

“You want to take this outside,” Jyn says, remaining standing this time, planting her feet. (Maybe that past isn’t  _ completely  _ behind her…)

“Oy, Nail, knock it off!”

Jyn looks up to see Melshi leaning up against the bar. She knows he’s short, but the floor is higher behind the bar to hide that fact, and he leans over them now.

“I’ll cut you off if I have too,” he says. The woman, Nail, grumbles and waves her hand, and disappears around the other side of the bar.

“You’re welcome,” Melshi says, as she slides onto the stool for a third time.

“I had it handled,” Jyn says.

Melshi raises his eyebrows. “She’s called Nail for a reason.”

“I don’t want to know.”

Melshi looks hard at her. “The usual, then?”

She nods before turning to scope the bar again. Her eyes catch immediately on a man entering the pub—he’s far too tall to be the man she’s waiting for, but the army uniform catches her eye all the same, and she scowls.

Except that he just happens to be staring at her when she does.

He scowls back.

She looks away, rolling her eyes.

A long, probing search of the pub yields no success. So she crosses her arms and leans against the bar to watch the performance. The singer warbles her finale, bows to mild applause, and rushes off stage.

“Here you are,” Melshi says, and the words are barely gone from his mouth before she grabs the tumbler from him. Ice rattles as she raises the glass to her lips; the scotch is smooth, and she closes her eyes and savors it.

“What’ll you have then?” 

When she opens her eyes, she sees the scowling soldier has filled the space her antagonizer left behind. An even taller man, also uniformed, looms over him, wearing a scowl of his own that perhaps rivals any she’s ever seen.

“Beer on tap,” the man says. He gestures over his shoulder. “And cola for him.”

“Do you have a problem?” the taller man says, catching her stare.

“No,” she says, and she ought to look away but she glares just a second longer.

He glares back.

“Alcohol is an impractical alteration of a sound mind,” he says. His accent reminds her of a place she’s long sought to forget. “I see you work quickly to alter yours.”

“Leave it, Kay,” his companion mutters.

Still glaring, she takes a long, glorious sip of her scotch.

Melshi hands them their drinks, and after assessing Jyn, the scowling man leads his buddy away from the bar, to lurk in the shadowy corner.

“Seat’s fuckin’ cursed,” Melshi mutters, glancing at her out of the side of his eyes as he wipes down the counter to her right.

Jyn shrugs. “Good. It’ll be open when my friend gets here.”

Melshi looks up from the table. “Rook coming back then?”

Despite everything, she can’t suppress the smile. “Just a few weeks’ leave,” she says, a heavy reminder to weigh down the joy bubbling up inside.

“Take what you can get,” he says.

Ten minutes later, halfway into her drink, Bodhi appears. 

Snow dusts his shoulders, and she’s glad, at least, that her first sight of him isn’t tainted by the uniform that hides under his coat. She waves him over, feeling like the giddy school girl she never was, and hops off her stool to embrace him.

He pulls away and immediately hones in on the empty chair beside her. “Made enemies already tonight?” he asks, laughing, eyes glinting.

She shrugs. “Saved it for you.”

“Sure you did,” he laughs, sliding into it. He reaches into the inside pocket of his coat, pulls out a long, thin box. “Sorry I’m late. I had to stop and get you something.”

She frowns. “No, you really didn’t.”

“Yes, I really did,” he says, taunting her.

Sighing, but in good humor, she takes the box. Her fingers glide over a smooth cover as she pushes off a silver ribbon; and when she pulls the lid off, she gasps.

Sitting in a bed of velvet, a silver chain.

“Bodhi,” she says. “You shouldn’t have.”

“You wrote in the letter that your chain broke,” he says, and she barely hears him. She digs into her own pocket, until her fingers find the rough stone of her mother’s crystal. It’s the only keepsake she’s ever allowed herself. She pulls it out now. The chain suits it.

“Let me,” he says, taking the crystal and the chain. He slides the chain through the loop on the top of her gem, and she lifts up her hair for him to clasp the chain around her neck.

Eyes welling, she barely manages to get out her words. “You really shouldn’t have,” she says again, voice quiet and hoarse. Her hand seeks the the crystal, returned to its proper place.

Bodhi smiles. “Consider it an early Christmas present.”

She clears her throat, blinks. “But I didn’t get you anything.”

“You still have three weeks,” he says, shrugging. “I expect it to be grand, to make up for the delay.”

“Bodhi!” She punches his shoulder.

He grins. “Hey—I asked two friends from training to meet us here. Hope you don’t mind.”

That’s a way to dry up the threat of tears. She diverts the energy into maintaining a neutral expression. “More army goofs? Why would I mind?”

“Come off it, Jyn,” he says, and he’s still smiling but his tone has hardened a little.

“I just don’t see why you—” Nope, the tears weren’t completely gone, just hiding, apparently. She clears her throat again. “It’s just not our war.”

Bodhi completely sidesteps the conversation mine she’s just laid. “You’ll like them,” he says. “Or you’ll like Cassian, anyways. He helped me get through training, Jyn. Please, be nice.”

“Fine,” she mutters, crossing her arms and demonstrating the opposite behavior. “But I don’t want to get mired in another debate about our obligation to the war effort—”

“When you have a chance to do what’s right?” says a familiar voice behind her. “What’s there to debate?”

She already knows who it is lurking behind her, and she whirls around, glaring, hand raised, ready for conversational combat.

But Bodhi interrupts her.

“Captain!” he says, jumping up and clapping him a hug. He pulls away, turns to the taller man from before. “Kay,” he adds, nodding. “Did you find the place alright?”

“Alright is not a term I would use,” Kay says, looking around and frowning.

“He doesn’t like the cold,” the scowling man says.

“On the contrary,” Kay says. “I’m quite used to colder temperatures. This bar is unusually warm. And stuffy.”

“So this is Kay,” Bodhi says to Jyn. “You’ll get used to him.”

“We’ve met,” Kay says, sniffing. 

“Jyn makes friends wherever she goes,” Bodhi says, but his joke is meager, his chuckle weak. 

The scowling man turns to her. “Cassian Andor,” he says, although Jyn’s sleuthed that out by now. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she says. She takes another sip from her scotch, but is disappointed to discover she’s savored it a little too long; the ice is diluting it.

Cassian stares at her, a master at the neutral expression she’d been going for earlier when faced with Bodhi’s gift. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

At this revelation, Jyn swivels back to Bodhi, who’s now hunched over, raising his hands in a “what can you do?” expression.

“Nothing too interesting, I hope,” she says, working hard to avoid gritting her teeth.

“That you’re like a sister to him,” Cassian says.

It’s kind. It’s friendly.

It’s calculating, is what it is.

It must be, because Jyn immediately softens, because it drudges just the few happy memories she has of growing up in New York under the tutelage of—a name she no longer acknowledges. A name from  _ that  _ past.

She takes a closer look at Cassian this time. Clean cut, sharp jawline, sharper eyes. He sees more than most, she gathers; and she swears she’ll have to steer clear of him. His dark hair is cropped short, just like Bodhi’s. (And gosh, how strange Bodhi looks without his long hair. Another mark against the military, however small. She’ll count any tally.)

She gives Bodhi a half smile, just to ease his mind, before turning back to Cassian. Eyes narrowed, she drains the rest of her glass before setting it down a little too enthusiastically. 

“Another?” Melshi asks.

She nods, and he’s already got it ready on hand.

She’s got to hand it to Melshi. They hadn’t got on at first, and perhaps this was her fault, on account of the incident with the shovel, but she hadn’t known at the time they had a common enemy. Sometimes alliances on the streets could get a little muddled. They’d sorted it out enough, in the end; and besides, he always stocks the best scotch. That helps.

Kay looks down his nose at her—even more so than required from his height. She’s acquainted with this behavior enough by now that she relegates it to the New York background.

“So, you train with Bodhi, then?” she says to Cassian.

He meets her scrutiny. “Yes. Technically, I oversaw his training.”

“He really did help me Jyn,” Bodhi says. “I couldn’t have made it through training without him.”

Jyn has to bite back some retort, about how maybe Bodhi would be better off if he hadn’t made it through training, and for a split second she directs her blame to Cassian, as if Cassian had recruited Bodhi himself, as if Cassian had started the war.

But his gaze softens when he turns to Bodhi and he shakes his head. “You did it yourself.”

She sighs.

“Thanks for looking after him,” she says to Cassian.

He shrugs. “Like I said. He took care of himself.” He takes a sip of his beer.

“Does this establishment have a loo?” Kay asks.

Bodhi snorts. “Yes, I’ll show you.”

Before Jyn can plead against this abandonment, Bodhi and Kay are lost in the crowd.

She eyes Cassian once more, says nothing, and focuses on the entertainment.

“I can tell Bodhi means a lot to you,” Cassian says, settling into the once-again vacant seat next to her.

“Yea,” she says.

“He’ll be alright, you know?”

She scoffs. “Mind your own, yea?”

“You don’t think we should get involved,” he says flatly, almost changing the subject, but if anything it’s just a veer in a slightly different direction.

“I don’t think anyone should get involved in anyone else’s business, no,” she says, as curtly as she possibly can.

He shakes his head, lets out a wry laugh. “You’re British,” Cassian says, and she grips her drink just a little tighter at the implication of just how much Bodhi might have told him. Not that her accent doesn’t give it away. “You can stand to see the Nazi flag fly over Europe?”

“I’m naturalized,” she snaps. “Proud citizen of the U. S. of A.”

“Could you see the Nazi flag fly over America?”

“It’s not a problem if you don’t look up.”

She can feel the anger radiating off him as he leans over her, and so she faces him and gives her best glare back. She feeds everything into it—emotions she hasn’t unlocked in years, emotions he really has no right to witness, emotions about each of her fathers that left her—and she’s shaking from the effort of channeling those feelings without letting them overwhelm her. She’s shaking because somewhere deep down, she knows that she’s lying, that the words she’s saying betray hidden truths, and that she doesn’t like the implication of what will happen the day she’s forced to confront them.

He doesn’t cower. He doesn’t blink.

“One day,” he says, voice quiet but tense, “you’ll wake up and realize this fight is real for you. You’ll have a stake in it.”

“I don’t intend to give up my autonomy so some hot-headed goof with a gun can order me to kill,” she grits back. Her cheeks burn; her eyes burn.

He snorts, looks her up and down, gesturing to the skirt and heels she’s been forced to wear, as part of her uniform. “You don’t have to,” he says.

As if she can’t fight. As if she  _ hasn’t  _ been in fights. She has to set down her glass to keep herself from breaking it in her fist.

He doesn’t move, except to raise his brows.

“Not all of us have the luxury of political opinions,” she says.

“Some us decide to do something about it anyways,” he says back.

She stands, the feet of her chair scraping across the wooden floor.

“Jyn!” 

Melshi’s voice startles her and she turns to see him leaning over the bar.

Her gaze drifts down to her drink, half empty. She swipes it and downs it; a waste of good scotch but she’d waste it either way. She slams the glass down on the counter and looks back at Cassian.

“Give Bodhi my regrets,” she says. “You seem to like looking after him.”

Something flickers in Cassian’s gaze, but otherwise he still doesn’t move.

She hesitates, then adds, “Tell him I’ll be at the flat.”

Then she swivels on her heel to walk away.

“It’s called an apartment,” he says, and she can even hear the sneer in his voice. So much for neutral. “In America.”

She tosses him a rude gesture she  _ knows  _ is American and storms off.

From the stage comes a rather tuneless rendition of “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and she hopes that isn’t a promise.

A cold wind pushes against her as she steps out onto the street. The fluffy snowflakes from earlier have shrunk, and instead of floating lazily in the lamplight they whirl around her. She regrets forgetting her gloves, but shoves her hands deep into her pockets and braces herself.

She’s halfway down the block when she hears the shouting.

“Please!”

She rushes back, towards an alley. Only vaguely is she aware of others flowing out of the door to Bonnie; instead she focuses on the scene before her.

The alley is dark, shadowed, difficult to see, but she can make out at least three dark figures, huddled close together.

Kicking something.

Her hand grabs her baton before she can even think about it. 

And though she wishes she could give these men as unfair a fight as they have their victim, she shouts out at them anyways—to sooner ensure his relief.

“Hey!”

Only one of them turns; he mutters something she can’t hear before resuming.

She marches forward.

“I said,  _ hey! _ ” she shouts, grabbing his arm and pulling him back.

“Get lost,” he says, but she launches an uppercut and he stumbles back.

It happens quickly—her baton is already out, and she swings it, and she swings her leg; she’s punching and dodging and kicking, and all three of them are down within a minute.

She looks down at the man crouched on the ground. He’s older, and somewhat shaken, but it seems she’s come just in time.

“You alright?” she asks.

“Y-yes,” he says. But he stumbles when he tries to stand.

As she helps him up, she happens to glance down the alley, spots a figuring lurking at the end of it.

In the lamplight, she can see the uniform clearly.

He rushes forward, assists her with helping the man up.

“There’s a clinic,” Jyn says, as they limp back towards the street. She ignores the groans at her feet. More city backdrop. “Down the street, around the corner. I work there.”

Cassian nods.

As they walk, he maneuvers to shield Jyn and the older gentleman from the wind. 

It takes about fifteen minutes, but it seems like a lifetime. 

No one talks the entire way, not until a nurse greets them at the door and asks what happened.

Jyn explains; Cassian remains quiet the whole time. And only after the man has disappeared into an exam room does he finally open his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes just for a moment. “Thanks for your help,” she says, instead of anything else.

He cocks his head to the side, and seems to be assessing her yet again. Then he pauses. “Jyn—your hands!”

It’s only when she looks at them—red, knuckles split and bleeding—does she register any pain.

“It’s nothing,” she says. “I used to box.”

“Nurse!” Cassian says, ushering her back towards where they’d taken the man.

“It’s fine, really, I can take care of it myself,” she says.

A different nurse comes out to meet them; Jyn recognizes her.

“Hey, Marlene.”

The nurse shakes her head and sighs. “Again?” she says.

Jyn shrugs. “‘Parrently so.”

“Does this happen often?” Cassian says, as they follow Marlene down the hall.

“I’m a boxer,” Jyn repeats. “Bodhi didn’t tell you that?”

The ghost of a smile hovers on the corner of his lips. “I can’t say I’ve kept track of everything—”

She halts him with a look.

“Yea,” he says. “He may have mentioned it.”

Marlene waves her to the exam table.

“Is there anything Bodhi hasn’t told you?”

“Ah,” Cassian grimaces. “Probably not.”

“Well,” Jyn says, specifically not wincing as Marlene applies ointment to her knuckles, “That’s good to know, I guess.”

“But you don’t know anything about me,” he says, and she’s surprised she hasn’t come to this conclusion faster, the implied imbalance in their acquaintance. 

“I guess not,” she says.

“Can’t believe Bodhi didn’t write about me,” he says, again that suggestion of a smile. Then he looks around, as if suddenly getting his bearings. “Should I be back here?”

“It’s fine, I work here.”

He glances at Marlene. She waves her hand. “It’s fine, Jyn works here.”

“Seems…” he trails off under Jyn’s gaze. And he actually laughs. “Just be glad Kay isn’t here. He’d have something to say about proper etiquette and sanitization.”

A biting remark comes to mind, but she stops it, reconsiders. “You’ve known him long?”

“Yea,” he says, watching the nurse wrap Jyn’s hands. “Since I was—” Now he hesitates. “Since I joined the army. When I was fifteen.” He glances at Marlene and coughs. “Seventeen, of course.”

Her own smile sneaks up her face; there’s something sad there, of course, but Cassian has seemed somewhat straight-laced until now, and she likes the idea of—something more, there. “Seventeen,” she says. “Of course.”

“When my mother died,” he offers, ducking his head a little. Perhaps this is too vulnerable an admission, even for an exam room in a clinic.

Marlene saves them both. “All done,” she says.

“Thanks, Mar,” Jyn says, hopping off the table.

“Do try to keep it from splitting open again,” Marlene says.

“I make no promises,” Jyn says. “Free to go?”

“Yea,” Marlene says, sighing. “You know the way out.”

“Isn’t there paperwork—”

Both Jyn and Marlene give him a look, and he raises his hands. “Fine, fine.”

The silence takes a different kind of tone, as they walk back to the bar. 

“It doesn’t snow like this,” he offers, gesturing to the air. The snow has returned to lazy, floating flakes. “Not in California.”

“Bodhi says ash falls from the sky sometimes.”

“That’s not like snow.”

He smiles. “Not at all. Not like this. It’s—almost peaceful.”

“Hm,” she says. “I never noticed before.”

“It’s nice,” he says.

“Yea.” She grins. “It is.” She pauses as they approach the door. “Listen, let’s maybe not tell Bodhi—”

The door nearly slams into her outstretched arm before she yanks it back. “Jyn!” says the person exiting. “Where have you been!”

Kay exits behind Bodhi, frowning as ever.

“We just decided to go for a stroll,” Cassian says. He eyes Jyn’s hands; she catches his meaning, and shoves them in her pockets.

“Yep,” she says. “Casual snow in the nice walk.”

Bodhi narrows his eyes, stares at her for a moment, stares at Cassian. Despite the cold, she feels her cheeks flush. “Right…” he says. His eyes linger on her red cheeks, until he turns to Cassian. And then his whole demeanor shifts.

“Right,” he says again. “Just a casual  _ walk _ in the nice  _ snow _ . Together.” 

Now he’s beaming, and Jyn’s eyes widen as she realizes how she misspoke, how he perceives her fluster. “No—Bodhi! That’s not—”

“I didn’t say anything,” he says. “I didn’t say  _ anything at all  _ about how you look awfully flushed in this cold.”

“Bodhi. Rook,” she warns.

“Cassian,” Kay says. “I’ve warned you about the effects of alcohol and rash decisions.”

“What?” For the first time since she’s met him, Cassian seems completely off guard. “Kay—”

But Jyn knows how to handle this situation as any good friend—or sister—would. 

She launches a large snowball at Bodhi.

“Hey!” he says, laughing, as white flakes cloud around him. “You have to declare first properly—” He gets hit again. “ _ Hey!” _

“Good aim, Andor,” Jyn says, grinning.

They end the night in Central Park, dozens of snowballs launched between them (even Kay participates, however reluctantly), and later, as Jyn sinks into her bed, clutching a cup of warm cocoa, she can’t help but think that maybe, sometimes, there are things worth fighting for.

And sometimes it just feels good to throw a well-aimed snowball.


	2. 1940

If there’s a rhythm to Jyn’s step, it’s only the rhythm of the city, the beat pulsing through its inhabitants, spring in their steps even with the approaching winter. It’s a new decade, a new era, ushered in by a better economy, a dream of the future offered up in the second year of the World’s Fair. And even if it’s been closed for two months, that feeling still lingers.

And for once, Jyn is tuned into it.

Jazz flows out of Woe Bonnie’s, upbeat and lively and entirely missing the spirit of its name. Jyn might once have rolled her eyes and given Melshi a hard time, but it just so happens that jazz is her mood today, at least this jazz, swinging and moving.

She settles in at the bar, tapping her foot as she waits for Melshi. 

“Boys coming back today?”

She jerks her head back towards the bar, away from the door, to find Melshi staring at her on the other side of the counter.

At her admittedly less than sincere frown, he shrugs. “You’ve checked out the door four times before I came over.”

“If you saw I was here,” she says, “Why didn’t you come over sooner?”

“Oy, jeez, Erso,” he says, rolling his eyes. He reaches for a tumbler anyways.

He’s right, of course, and she hates how observant he is. But it’s been a whole year since she’s seen Bodhi, and letters don’t make up for his absence, no matter how many fill her mailbox. Once a week, he covers two sheets of paper, front and back, with cramped words printed in crisp black ink. She can’t respond fast enough to answer every letter, and she doesn’t know where he finds all the words. But he does, and she reads them. She doesn’t respond to every letter, but she does read every letter.

She reads Cassian’s letters, too.

It takes her by surprise when she opens her mailbox, grabs a familiar envelope, and sees Cassian Andor’s name instead, scrawled in curling letters, surprisingly beautiful penmanship, better than hers, even.

She spends more time than is reasonable staring at this envelope, contemplating opening it while her fingers remain still. 

_ What could he possibly have to say to me?  _ she wonders, and for a second, she fears a long essay about the war. Her fingers trace under the edge of the flap, gently prying the paper apart, careful not to rip it, and all the while she’s phrasing a rebuttal in her head. 

She’s entirely unprepared for what she finds.

Just a four-by-six card, less than half the size of the sheets Bodhi uses, more negative space than writing.

_ Dear Jyn _ , it reads.  _ I hope this letter finds you well. I can’t say I miss the cold, but a wildfire is burning and it snowed ash today. Thinking of you. Warmest regards, Cassian. _

It’s nothing. Just a letter to an acquaintance. She’d come to understand, during the few weeks they’d all hung out together last year, that Cassian could count his friends—true, close friends—in the very people they sat with. (She can’t deny that rings a familiar bell.)

And it’s silly, because she barely knows him, she barely  _ likes  _ him, but this small card does warm her, as much as Bodhi’s ever do.

So she reads it again.

And she keeps it.

And she writes back.

Still short, still formal, because what does she have to say? Very little, and with that truth she carries the letter for a full week, addressed and stamped and filling space in her pocketbook, until one day, she seizes the reins of her bravery, rides it out to the mailbox, and tosses the letter in before she can have time to stop herself. (She spends the entire rest of the week regretting it and dreading—well, the rest of her life, really, because she dreads the possibility of no response as much as the possibility of any response, and no response is surely what she’ll get.)

Three letters come from Bodhi, with casual mentions of Cassian, but nothing that reveals anything about her letter or their correspondence.

Just when she decides she’s been a fool, decides she knows better, decides that both of her fathers and all of her life’s tragedies have taught her better than this, a second letter comes.

Just as short as the first. 

Just as warm.

Her fingers trace over the looping ink, and she smiles.

And she writes back.

They keep it short and formal, trivial parts of their day that don’t mean anything, not in the grand scheme of anything else. 

“It’s  _ nothing _ ,” she insists, when Bodhi arrives at the bar, and he confesses that he knows they’ve been writing each other.

It’s nothing Bodhi ought to smirk at, but it doesn’t stop him, when she protests. She shakes off the suggestion by changing the subject.

“So, you want to fly?” she asks.

Bodhi sees right through her, but he does want to fly and he wants to talk about it, and so he permits her this change of subject.

She listens as attentively as she can, restrains herself from expressions of discouragement, no matter how much they boil up inside her.

“...but I’ll have to transfer,” he’s saying when she officially and completely tunes him out.

Bodhi follows her gaze to the door, spots Cassian and Kay, and waves them over.

It occurs to her that she hasn’t properly panicked about this reunion. (Because she hasn’t really thought about it, it hasn’t come up in her mind at all, and that’s entirely why she’s unprepared when she sees him walk through the door, face red from the cold, and why she finds a traitor in her rebellious smile, commandeering the scowl she wears by default.)

“Right. It’s nothing,” Bodhi repeats, snickering, but she barely hears him.

Because she’s been writing to him, yes, but she only knows him behind a wall of paper and ink, and she’s never seen the faces he makes while writing—if he makes any. She’s never seen if he spends days dwelling on one particular word, if he agonizes over how to sign, if he tosses multiple drafts in the waste bin.

If her smile wobbles at all as he approaches, leaning in for an awkward hug, it’s obviously because her facial muscles are so unaccustomed to the expression.

“Hello, Jyn,” he says as they pull apart. The bar is crowded enough that he doesn’t go too far, and she has to lean up to look at him.

“You look well,” she says.

“As do you,” he says.

And that’s it.

Where the hell is her drink?

“Two beers, a scotch, and a cola,” Melshi says behind her, and sure enough, all four drinks sit on the counter.

“Took you long enough,” she grumbles.

“Did you order for us?” Cassian asks, puzzled, handing the cola to Kay.

She sighs. “No. Melshi just likes to show off.”

“How’d you know we were coming?” Bodhi asks.

Jyn stares Melshi down, and despite the shovel incident, he’s never really been afraid of her. Respectful, sure. But not afraid.

“Jyn Erso only smiles for certain people,” he says, grinning. But he’s busy enough he can’t linger, so she watches his back, glaring daggers into it, not at all sad to see him go.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says.

“Leave now?” Kay asks, bypassing any sort of friendly greeting. “We haven’t even started our drinks.”

“Good to see you, Kay,” she says. She takes a sip of her scotch. It’s always warmed her bones, but for the first time, she finds it almost stifling. “I meant after this round,” she adds.

“Where?” Bodhi asks.

“There’s a new club opened up down the block,” she says. 

He cocks his head, stares. “Dancing?”

“Why not?”

He stares at her, then she has to swat his hand away from her forehead. 

“Cassian?” she says. “Are you with me?”

“All the way,” he says, and maybe she’s just warm because the bar is so crowded, and he’s inched closer to her.

“You hate dancing,” Kay says. 

“No, I don’t,” Cassian says.

“You declined an invitation to go dancing last week,” Kay says.

“It would be inappropriate for me to fraternize with trainees,” he says.

“You specifically told them you hate dancing.”

“Don’t recall,” he mutters, but Jyn laughs.

“You’re in New York,” she says, “What better place to try something new?”

“Who  _ are  _ you?” Bodhi says.

#

“Really? Dancing?” Bodhi says, as they walk along the cold street. But the alcohol still courses through Jyn’s veins, her head is swimming, uncharacteristically for only having had one drink, and that rhythm still moves her feet.

She doesn’t blame his confusion, can’t be surprised at his baffled expression. 

She doesn’t really understand it, either.

But she woke up with it this morning. A feeling she can’t quite name—a word that hovers on the tip of her tongue—has gradually risen within her, something new and light and fresh, sneaking up on her, overtaking her. She’s been staring at the dark horizon the sun left behind for so long, it’s risen behind her, warming her, and she’s finally turned to look at it.

It’s hope.

And she doesn’t know what prompted this turn around.

But it does feel nice.

So she shrugs and gives Bodhi a half-smile. “Honestly?” she says, voice low, and they’re walking ahead of Cassian and Kay, so they have at least some privacy. “I’m not sure. It’s just—the mood of the city, I suppose.”

He snorts. “Right. The mood of the city. So you always feel like this, now?”

She shakes her head.

He stares at her for a few steps, waiting for some kind of clarification; she has none and looks away. 

“Well,” Bodhi finally says. “I’m glad you seem happy. Whatever it is.”

His words are soft and well-meant, and drift along the edge of her happiness; but still they fall, sinking, into the bedrock of long-held fears. And what she hears between his words is a warning: that her happiness, wherever it comes from, will abandon her.

The moment is fleeting.

They reach the dance hall; a swell of big band jazz bursts through the doors as they open them, and the night begins.

#

They dance.

It’s awkward, at first. Despite his original commitment, Cassian opts out of dancing, buys another drink, and lingers with Kay by the wall, watching.

So she dances with Bodhi. She dances with others who slide in, and never with the same partner for more than one song.

Fighting has always been a dance for her, and swing, with its offbeat steps, its flips and lifts, appeals to her in a way no other dance has. She’s at home in a fight, in the ring, and dancing might as well be her vacation home, like so many well-to-do New Yorkers seem to have. Most nights, her job, her bills, and her general disposition keep her out of clubs, but she’s got to find something to occupy her time when the gym is closed and she wants to  _ move _ . 

And so, with enough minimal experience and enough natural talent, she’s learned her way around the dance floor.

It doesn’t bother her to dance with strangers; she’s used to it, she prefers it. Prefers knowing, predictably, when they’ll leave, by the cadence of the song. She can count on the closing chord and she can move on and she’s never left behind.

She thrives in it.

She thrives now, high on this newfound hope coursing through her, and her current partner just might be the best yet. He’s got technical moves for days, can lift her and swing her and flip her, and she loves it. Their song is ending, and she spins one last time, until the trumpet blares one final note, and she finds herself ending her twirl right into—Cassian.

“May I cut in?” he asks.

(It’s entirely too formal and completely unnecessary and she thinks about how  _ nice  _ it’s been, dancing with men whose names she doesn’t ever have to know. And she thinks about how awkward Cassian will be, tall and lanky and too traditional for a dance like this.)

But her partner shrugs, because he’s ready to move on, too. Cassian frowns after him before turning to Jyn.

“You don’t have to ask,” she clarifies. “Just dance.”

Cassian gives her a sheepish grin. Neither of them say anything else as the next song starts up. The drum beats a steady tattoo as they stare at each other; but others are already dancing and they’ve got to move. They step towards each other at the same time, just as the trumpet jumps in.

And then they go.

They start easy, fundamental steps, feet kicking out, careful spins.

Cassian Andor learns quickly.

It’d be ridiculous to say he’s as good as other partners, but he has the rhythm and he has the grace, when he’s confident, and he certainly has the physical capabilities. 

They pick up the pace. Faster steps, faster twirls, duck unders, lifts; the music picks up and he picks her up, swings her around—and nothing catastrophic happens.

They pause and grin and share the small success, and then resume their movements, in unison, in rhythm, in time with the other.

No, Cassian doesn’t have all the technical skills her other partners have, but she’s never felt so in sync with someone before.

Three, five, ten songs go by.

And she realizes she’s  _ smiling. _

Aching feet and a parched throat file complaints simultaneously; they navigate their way off the dance floor, flushed and sweating and giddy.

They find Kay at the bar, his voice rising as he articulates something about digital computers compared to analog, but he interrupts himself when he spots Cassian.

“How nice of you to return,” he says. He’s still nursing what Jyn guesses to be only his second cola of the night. “As a friend I believe it is in my interest to advise you,” he says to Cassian. “You looked ridiculous.”

Cassian doesn’t respond, except to roll his eyes and sidestep Kay to flag down the bartender.

The man who Kay had been arguing with uses this distraction to flee.

“Where’s Bodhi?” Jyn asks.

Kay scoffs. “M-I-A.” He gestures towards the middle of the dance floor.

Cassian orders drinks for the two of them, then leaves to find the restroom, leaving Jyn and Kay to regard each other in an awkward silence only broken by Kay slurping the last bit of his soda.

“What’ve you got against dancing, then?” Jyn finally asks, not out of interest, but more out of an impish desire to annoy him.

“Nothing,” he says sharply.

“What have you got against  _ Cassian  _ dancing, then?” she says.

He narrows his eyes, still not quite looking at her. And he doesn’t respond.

“Just trying to make conversation,” she mutters, clutching her whiskey, resisting the urge to down it all right there, reminding herself how she likes to savor it. 

“I don’t see why gossiping about my friend ought to be the chosen topic,” he says, sniffing.

“Alright,” she says, “I suppose we could resume your conversation about computers. Please, enlighten me in the ways of the future.”

He snorts. “You’d be out of your depth.”

She could protest at this, she could reference her father’s work, she could reference her mother’s work, she could reference her own work. But she does not rise to this bait.

(There are subjects she’d rather not discuss, either.)

She just shrugs.

Silence is fine. Silence suits her.

She savors her drink and looks at the dancing crowd.

“It’s not him,” Kay says after several beats. “It’s not like him. He hates dancing.” He pauses. “I can’t understand why he’s doing it.”

“Maybe you don’t know everything about him.”

He glances at her, as if she’s accused him of not knowing two plus two. “I know Cassian Andor. I’ve known him since he was fifteen.”

She considers this. “When he enlisted.”

“Yes, when he—no.” Kay shakes his head. “That is—that is not when he enlisted.” He stares at her, eyes intense. “How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

“He told  _ you _ ? When?”

“Last year.” 

“Oh, sure,” Kay says, “Cassian Andor told a perfect stranger that he lied about his age when he enlisted.” His voice starts to rise; he gathers speed as he goes. “I suppose he confided in you, too, told you all about how his mother died, and how his father died before that, all about the protest, and about how he’d abandoned the family and Cassian had to support them in the middle of the Depression. I suppose he—”

It would be wise for Jyn to suggest he stop, in lieu of exposing personal details about a friend, or at least that he lower his voice because he’s on the verge of making a scene.

But Jyn isn’t always wise, or at least, she doesn’t always choose to be.

“So what’s it to you if he did?” (He didn’t. Of course he didn’t.)

Kay just stares, like his brain has short-circuited.

Before Jyn has to think of anything else to say, Cassian appears.

“Welcome back,” she says.

“Sorry for the wait.” He reaches for his beer. “The line was long.” He takes a swig. “I hope you found something to talk about while I was gone.”

“Oh,  _ plenty _ ,” Kay says. 

Cassian arches an eyebrow. “Kay,” he says, “I told you earlier. If you don’t want to be here, you can go back to the hotel.”

Kay frowns. “Someone’s got to look out for you.”

“I’m fine, Kay,” Cassian says. 

Kay glances between the two of them, his gaze lingering a little longer on Jyn. “Someone’s got to make sure you don’t get into trouble.”

He nods his head towards her when he says ‘trouble.’ Jyn frowns, her hand tightens around her glass.

Cassian puts a hand on her shoulder.

“There’s no trouble here,” he says. “Go back to the hotel.”

Kay stares between them just a moment longer, then throws his hands up in the air. “What do I know?” he says, retreating towards the coat check. 

Cassian watches his back.

“What did you say to him?” he asks, when Kay is out of earshot.

Jyn takes a long sip of her whiskey. Then shrugs. “You think I’m a criminal?”

“What? Is that what you two—”

“No,” she says, sighing.

Cassian cocks his head to the side.

“What did he tell you about me?” they both blurt at the same time.

They blink at each other in surprise. And then, again at the same time, they let out chuckles more awkward than amused, and glance away, and then back.

“You first,” Cassian says, gesturing with his bottle.

“What did Bodhi tell you about me?” Jyn says.

“Didn’t we do this last year?” he asks.

“I don’t—”

Cassian puts a hand up. “I told you. Probably everything.”

Jyn sighs. A booth empties up nearby, so she gestures towards it and they slide in together.

“That does sound like Bodhi,” she admits.

“He doesn’t mean anything bad by it,” Cassian says.

She nods. “I know.” She regards him. “So you know about Saw?”

“I do.” He regards her right back. “Jyn, it doesn’t—times were hard for everyone, back then. You did what what you had to survive.”

She could tell, even if Kay hadn’t summed up Cassian’s life story in a minute-long rant, she could tell by the softness in his eyes that he’s lived through the same, that he knows, that he gets it.

“My father left when I was eight,” she says, and his expression doesn’t change as she says it, so she knows Bodhi’s told him this, too. But  _ she _ hasn’t told Bodhi everything, so she knows he hasn’t heard what she’s about to say. “He was a weapons scientist in Denmark, when he was recruited. For the Germans. In the Great War. He tried to move away from it after, he tried to move to Britain and put it behind him. But one night, a man he used to work with showed up and—and—”

Cassian takes her hand, and she doesn’t swat it away.

She clears her throat. “Well. He works for them, still. Again.”

Understanding dawns in Cassian’s eyes.

“I don’t—I don’t  _ really _ —I couldn’t stand to see that flag fly anywhere,” she says softly, tearing her eyes away from Cassian’s, looking down at her drink, the table, her pale hands trembling.

“You’ve lost so many already,” he says. She doesn’t remember when he became so close.

“Right.”

“I meant what I said last year,” he says, “Bodhi is great. And he’ll make a great pilot. He’ll be alright.”

“Yea.” She looks away, lets her bangs—already loose from their pins—fall around her face, and dabs her eyes with her free hand. “Hey,” she says, trying to brighten up, looking back at him again. “I thought we came here to have a good time.”

“I am,” he says. “I mean, not that—we don’t have to talk about this.” He lets go of her hand suddenly, as if his own had snuck away from him and he’s only just now discovered it. “Do you want to dance again?”

“No,” she says. “No, that’s fine, I think I just need some fresh air.”

#

They find Bodhi, wave goodbye as he’s still keen on dancing, and Jyn promises to meet him for breakfast tomorrow.

As they walk along the park, a light snow starts to fall.

“What do you know,” Cassian says, holding out his hand. “A casual snow in the nice walk.”

She snorts, but smiles. “I can’t believe I said that.”

“Blame it on the bloodloss.”

“Sure,” she says, raising her chin, nodding. “I can’t believe you  _ remember  _ that.”

He shrugs. “It was a good night. Well, parts of it. The parts where we weren’t arguing, and you weren’t beating up thugs in an alleyway.”

“The parts where you weren’t getting pelted with snow?” She grins. “There weren’t many.”

He laughs. “It’s too bad you won’t join the war effort,” he says lightly. “You could end it all on your own.”

She rolls her eyes but still blurts out a loud laugh. “Wouldn’t be fair.”

“Yea.”

They reach a park and continue through silence, watching the snow drift and collect on the grass around them. 

“He told me about your father,” Jyn says, eyes focused on the orange light of the lamp ahead. Behind it, the clouded gray sky reflects back the light from the snow, takes on a similar orange hue. “That’s what Kay told me.”

“Ah,” Cassian says, eyes on the sidewalk in front of them, watching for ice, watching their feet walk in time with each other, even though they’re no longer dancing. “I suppose we’re even then.”

“What happened?”

Cassian sighs and shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets. “Bad luck.”

She turns to look at him, but he keeps his face forward. 

“My family—papa, mama, my uncles and aunts—we all worked on a farm.” He pauses, and they take a few steps in silence, shoes crunching in the snow. “It was crowded and the pay was shit and the living conditions even worse.” He shakes his head, lets out a wry, bitter laugh. “We didn’t even know how worse it was going to get. Papa helped organize a protest and left. But we couldn’t—couldn’t afford to stop working.” He clears his throat. “A cop showed up, the day after the protest. He said it was a freak accident, but… I…”

Her hand twitches; she wants to reach out, how he did for her, but his hands are imprisoned in that coat of his.

“I was ten,” he finally says. She watches his breath swirl around in the cold air. “The day I started working.”

“Oh…”

He finally turns to look at her, and she sees something so familiar in his eyes that it actually hurts. She trembles, and wants to look away, but can’t.

“So,” he says, breaking the silence, resuming their walk forward. “I joined the army as soon as I could. It was the only way I could afford to live. And it, uh, protected me from repatriation.”

“You’re not—”

“My mother’s family has lived here for almost a hundred years,” he says. “Lived on that land since before it became U.S. territory. It didn’t matter.”

She gives a small nod in understanding, not really knowing what to say. 

“I don’t think this is what you had in mind,” he says, “when you said you wanted fresh air.”

“I did ask,” she says. She tilts her head to the side, resumes listening to their footsteps in the snow, watching large flakes gently fall around them, breathing out warm puffs of air into the cold night. “Why would you want to fight for this country?”

“I wouldn’t be fighting for us,” he says quickly, no hesitation, as if this is just some topic he has ready and waiting for someone to ask. “I’d be fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves.”

She nods, and this she understands perfectly. He knows she does. 

“We’re going to enter the war,” she says. “Roosevelt’s heading that way.”

“Yes. It’s only a matter of time.”

“You must be busy,” she says, “with all the draftees coming to train.”

“Yes.”

She lets out a heavy sigh. “A draft during peace time.”

“It’s smart,” he says. “It gives us time to prepare.”

She nods.

What is she going to do? When the declaration of war comes? She can hear Saw’s voice in her head. Urging her to fight. She’s shut it out for so long, but the closer they come to another war in Europe, the louder he seems to get, rattling the door she sealed on that vault. 

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

She’s so surprised by this she actually laughs. As if they haven’t bared their souls to each other, practically still strangers, and they’ve confessed some of their darkest secrets. “I think we’re past that, Captain.”

“Why did you write back?”

She stops in her tracks. If she’d thought she’d been surprised before… 

He continues a few steps before he notices and whirls around, his feet smearing the snow on the pavement.

“Why did you write first?”

They stare at each other, at an impasse, neither of them willing to disrupt the balance, to take the first step towards a lighter world. Both of them know, at least in some hidden capacity, that something floats between them, something could lift them, could show them how to fly. But they are not dreamers, with their heads in the clouds, and the talk of war weighs heavy on their shoulders. And falling from such a great height hurts; they’ve borne such bruises since they were children.

“It’s good to see you, Jyn,” he finally says. “It’s getting late. Let me walk you home.”

She nods, incapable of any verbal communication. They do not speak until they arrive at her apartment.

“I’ll see you around, Cassian,” she says.

Standing on the stoop, she’s for once taller than him, and he looks up at her. She’s aware, for some reason, how the lamp light above and behind her halos her face. And she’s aware of how the light shines in his eyes, an orange echo of her rising sun of hope. 

“Goodnight, Jyn.”

Jyn has always been practical, has always kept her feet on the ground.

But for the first time in her life since she was eight, she gazes out her window, and looks at the orange-gray sky, and shares Bodhi’s wonder of flight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Cassian's background:
> 
> In the 1920s, Mexican and Mexican American farm workers were recruited by U.S. farm owners because they thought they could tolerate harsher living conditions. They were paid significantly less than white American workers, and eventually Mexico asked for U.S. farm owners to provide legal contracts for all Mexican workers. The U.S. responded by enforcing the border. (Relatedly, new century, same struggles.) In the 1930s, refugees from the Midwest flooded the job market, making it even tougher for farm workers to find work. Facing blame and discrimination, Mexican and Mexican American farm workers organized strikes to protest wages and worsening living conditions. Repatriation plans called for Mexican immigrants to go back to Mexico, and often many Mexican Americans were sent back through these programs, even though they were actual citizens. 
> 
> In summary: turns out, people are terrible.


	3. 1941

Jyn Erso radiates like the sun.

And it’s not because she stands by the window, where the actual sun streams in and shines on her face, and it’s not because it’s rather stuffy and crowded in the living room of the Bey’s townhouse, and it’s not because she’s had several of the deceptively sweet cocktails the servers have been handing out.

(Well, it’s not  _ just  _ any of those things.)

She talks about Bodhi, she talks about the war, she talks about her father, with a fire in her eyes. It’s there when she argues with him, when she takes down street thugs, when she pelts him with snow, when she dances, when she looks down at him from the top step of her stoop and he thinks—maybe, maybe.

Maybe in another life, he would have done something about it. He would have leaned up and answered the question and the hope he’d seen in her eyes last year, the night they’d gone dancing, and he would have been able to promise her all of himself, would have asked her if she might want to share the rest of their lives together.

“Bodhi was right about you.”

He looks over and finds Kes Dameron standing to his left, coming in from the dining room. He’s also looking over at the bay window where Jyn, Bodhi and Shara fuss over Dameron and Shara’s two-year-old son.

“You do like to revel in sadness.”

“Pardon?” Cassian says.

“Those were  _ his _ words,” Dameron says, popping a bite-sized shortbread cookie into his mouth. 

Cassian stares and waits for him to finish chewing.

“Just ask her,” Dameron says. “She’s clearly head over heels for you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about it.”

In his hands, he fidgets with his cap, removed hours ago, and kept as something to hold onto for—he doesn’t know why.

Dameron rolls his eyes.

“You’re a smarter man than this,” Dameron says. “I should know. You trained me.”

This is why he doesn’t fraternize with his trainees. And he never did, before Bodhi Rook came along and so earnestly wanted to be better. It was Cassian’s job, after all, to train him, to make sure the limited recruits that they had could pull their own weight. Back then, before Roosevelt’s speech last summer, before his peace time draft last fall, they’d barely scraped by as it was. They needed every man, for when the time would eventually come. 

In helping Bodhi, Cassian had only been doing the right thing.

And so how had doing the right thing brought him to this townhouse, belonging to the father of the wife of one of his best soldiers?

Dameron shakes his head and doesn’t wait for any kind of answer. He’s a man with limited time, after all, and so he moves forward towards his wife and son and leaves his captain behind.

(This is a step Cassian himself could never make.)

Jyn looks up as Dameron approaches and spots Cassian in her line of sight. She smiles at him before turning to greet Dameron. As Cassian watches, still secure in his corner, Dameron picks up his son and hoists him into the air. They share matching smiles, little Poe laughing and wiggly in delight. Faintly, Cassian catches some joke about how Poe is going to follow in his mother’s footsteps one day—and someone responds with some line, “Don’t you mean fly in his mother’s wings one day?” and they all laugh a little too loudly, high on the cocktails, on whatever fleeting happiness holds this moment together.

It’s been over a year since Roosevelt announced that draft.

It’s been over two years since the war began in Europe.

A shadow has crept up on the United States, and it’s only a matter of time before they will declare in support of Great Britain.

And he will go and serve where he is needed.

For now, he stands in his own silence, idly listening to the Giants and Dodgers game on the radio.

“It’s irresponsible if you ask me.”

Another kind of shadow has fallen on Cassian now, a familiar, reliable kind. “No one did, Kay,” he says.

Kay sniffs. “Both of them serving, when they’ve a child. What will happen to him?”

“Kay,” Cassian says, warning.

His friend stops talking, and Cassian feels sharp eyes looking down on him. “Please accept my apology, Cassian.”

He does sound truly sorry, and he ought to be, even if Cassian knows that Kay is only thinking of his friend—of Cassian’s own story of childhood abandonment—and not whatever offense the Beys might take upon hearing his judgment of their decisions.

“It is better not to be attached,” Kay says, softer this time.

Better, in some senses of the word.

In the silence, Cassian vaguely hears the radio, “…interrupt this broadcast…”

“If you’ve retired to the corner,” Kay says, “might we not retire to our own dwelling?”

Cassian sighs and nods. “I’ll give our farewell.”

Everything happens at once then.

He moves forward to join the group by the window.

Jyn sees the movement out of the corner of her eye and turns to look at him, as someone else hits another punchline, and her laugh bursts out across the room.

He passes the radio.

He hears the breaking announcement.

She can’t hear it, where she’s standing, surrounded by conversation. But she sees his expression change and she reads it on his face, as surely as he reads the change in hers. 

Her laugh breaks so suddenly, the mood, the atmosphere, the joy—just shatter.

Like a lamp, fallen from a table.

Everyone glances between Jyn and Cassian.

“There’s been an attack,” he says. “On Pearl Harbor.”

#

Hours later, they all still sit gathered around the Bey’s living room, circling the radio.

No one has spoken, through the intermittent updates, through the disarmingly upbeat commercials singing “J-E-L-L-Ohhhh,” through jazzy trumpets blasting like it’s any other happy December day. 

He sits in the bay window, he sits next to Jyn, with his back against the cold sunlight outside and her hand warm in his.

He doesn’t remember when that happened or who reached for whom.

It seems, maybe, like they’ve always been that way, been frozen here in this window in this bright room balanced on a precipice.

Jyn is as pale as the snow outside, and he knows she feels as cold.

At some point, shortly after he’d broken the news, Shara had taken Poe upstairs, laid him down for a nap. Now she sits in her husband’s embrace on a chair opposite the room.

Even Kay has been silent.

Until now.

“Cassian,” he says, softly, quietly, for once very much aware of himself and his surroundings. “It’s getting late. We ought not to impose any longer on the Beys’ kind hospitality.”

Cassian thanks God for this small convenience, Kay’s careful and polite wording. He also wonders if Kay has been rehearsing this in his head for the past hour.

When Kay speaks, the whole room shifts, as everyone moves for the first time in hours. Cassian realizes that, in fact, the sun no longer shines on his back. The streets are dark, but for the soft glow of lamplight.

“Yes,” Bodhi says, rising from his spot on the floor. He turns to Shara’s parents. “Thank you for having us, Mr. and Mrs. Bey. Your home is—is very lovely.”

Shara’s father clears his throat and rises with the rest of them, slow and hesitant, as if any movement might bring the war into this very room, as if the war waits for them on their very doorstep.

(And it might as well.)

“Jyn,” Bodhi says, and she starts. She alone has not yet moved, and still sits, clutching his hand. “I’ll walk you home.”

She gazes over at Bodhi as though waking from a dream. “Right,” she says.

Still holding her hand, Cassian helps her up, until at last she lets go. Now empty and bare, her hands flutter in front of her, smoothing out her pants, tucking a loose stray hair behind her ear.

Bodhi disappears into the foyer to get their coats.

Jyn looks up at him and—her eyes—she’s so close—he could reach out and pull her into his embrace and hold her tight to him.

“Jyn,” Bodhi says, from the archway.

She blinks, and her hand again flutters between them, gently brushes his arm, and then she looks away and shakes her head and rushes to meet Bodhi.

He stares after her.

Tomorrow, he will leave. He knows this. 

He knows what Roosevelt must do now.

He knows what is imminent.

Will this be the last time he sees her?

“Jyn,” he says, rushing forward, following her.

(He thinks, recklessly, he would follow her into hell.)

(He’s already heading there himself.)

She’s shrugging on her coat as he enters the foyer, and she looks up at him when he enters.

“I’ll take you home,” he blurts out. This makes little sense. But then, it matters very little who walks Jyn home—all of them, Bodhi, Kay, and Cassian—are staying at the same hotel.

Bodhi is like a brother to her.

He should not take this from them.

Who is he to her, anyways?

“I mean,” he says, “I’ll walk with you.”

“That would—that would—yes,” Bodhi says, nodding. “I’ve got to pack. I wasn’t expecting—well, surely, we’ll be…”

He trails off.

“And you’re already packed of course,” Bodhi rambles on. “Captain Andor, always ready.”

Cassian says nothing, he doesn’t know what to say. It’s true. He barely unpacked. He barely has anything to unpack.

“Jyn,” Bodhi says, and Cassian counts this as the fourth time her name has been said in the span of five minutes. He doesn’t know why this figure seems so significant to him. “I’ll ring you in the morning, first thing. We’ll meet at the train station.”

“Yes,” she says slowly, nodding. “I’ll see you off. I’ll see you all off.”

She doesn’t look his way as she says this.

Kay, who was the first to put his coat on, who has been lurking by the door watching all this, stays quiet. Cassian steps next to him to grab his own coat from the closet.

“Go with Bodhi,” he says. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

“Come on,” Bodhi says, before Kay can get a word in edgewise.

They say their final farewells to Dameron and Shara and the Beys. He’ll see Dameron at the train station tomorrow.

Out on the street, they go their separate ways.

And once again, Cassian and Jyn walk together in the winter of December, beneath orange light that supplies no warmth.

“No snow tonight,” Cassian says, breaking the silence about five minutes into their walk.

“No snow,” Jyn echoes.

Her hands are now shoved deep into her pockets, and he knows she never wears gloves, and he wishes she would, and he wishes that her hand was still in his.

He should do it.

He should tell her.

He should give her hope to hold on to.

He doesn’t.

Hope goes hand in hand with a threat, after all, one never far from the other. The hope of reunion. The threat of never.

And while  _ he  _ has always clung to hope—always  _ had  _ to—he’s not sure it’s fair to ask that of her. After everything she’s been through, he can’t do that to her. He can’t abandon her like everyone else in her life has. It’s better—it’s better to never start something they might not get to finish.

Assuming, of course, that she’d even want him.

She’s distant now, eyes still burning, but far away, like the distant stars blinking in the clear night sky above.

She doesn’t look his way, just forward and down.

Neither of them speak again until they round the corner to her street.

“Why is it we always meet like this?” she mutters. It’s so quiet and so sudden he barely registers it, but then she looks up at him finally, with her bright and warm eyes, even as the rest of her shivers, and that he notices.

“Meet like what?” he asks.

She snorts. “In December. On the verge of…” She pulls her hands out of her pockets and gestures around her. “ … winter,” she finishes lamely.

On the verge of something cold and empty and bitter.

Still balanced on that precipice.

“It’s the only time I can get leave,” he says. His answer is simple and dumb and not at all what she meant and not at all what he meant to say in response.

She lets out a wry sound between a scoff and a laugh. 

“I wouldn’t prefer any other way,” he says, “than a casual snow in a nice walk with you.”

She lets out the sound again, a little softer this time, rolls her eyes, and punches his shoulder.

“You,” she says, “are hopeless.”

It did come out rather cheesier than he’d intended. He takes a deep breath; the air is ice in his lungs, but when he lets it out, it swirls in a warm cloud around him.

What have men ever been, but creatures who take the cold and make it warm?

Who take a threat, and make it hope?

He catches her hand, still exposed, still freezing in the night air.

Inevitably, he pulls her closer as she does so. She doesn’t protest, but she says his name.

“Cassian.”

One more time. “Jyn.”

They’ve reached her doorstep.

She turns to face him, links their spare hands. She meets his eyes. “Don’t  _ ever  _ stop writing,” she says.

“I won’t.”

“I’m going to join the front,” she says, still staring up at him, like she’s trying to sending some transmission across thousands of miles, like she’s desperate for her message to reach its destination. “They’ll need nurses.”

“Of course,” he says. Something in her relaxes at these words, and he wonders if she thinks he ever doubted her.

“I don’t know if—I don’t know how—just don’t stop writing. Please.”

“I promise.” It’s one promise he can keep.

She closes her eyes and takes her own breath. 

He lets go of her hands.

And pulls her close to him.

She shakes in his arms, still freezing in his embrace, and he pulls her in closer but she does not stop shaking. He rests his chin on her head.

This is their month, December.

This is where they know each other, in soft snow, in orange light, in a cold and empty wind. 

This is all they have to carry them through.

She pulls away, sniffling from the cold.

He waits as she rushes up the steps, fumbles with the key. As the door opens, she turns and looks back over her shoulder.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he says.

Her eyes widen. Her voice is soft and hoarse as she says, “Goodnight, Cassian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did in fact listen to recordings of the radio announcements about Pearl Harbor. The JELLO commercial and happy jazz does actually follow a statement that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Kind of surreal.


	4. 1942

“I’m going to do it,” Margaret says, “I am going to give them a piece of my mind.”

This declaration—of all the noises surrounding her, the buzz and grumble of engines, the shots of snipers, the groans and wails and screams of the injured, the sharp barks of doctors calling for assistance,  _ scalpel, suction, suture _ —of all of these, it is Margie’s shrill cry that gets under her skin.

Jyn is helping organize surgical equipment when she hears it, sharp and piercing like the very scalpel she’s holding. And she can’t stop what she’s doing—this equipment she’s preparing is needed for a surgery, and she’s already spent long enough hunting down half these supplies because god forbid they adequately supply the front lines.

So by the time Jyn finishes, by the time she hands it off to the nurse assisting the surgery, Margie is almost to the door.

Jyn has always been fast on her feet.

She nearly runs through what constitutes aisles, maneuvering between beds and cots and even soldiers laying on the concrete because there’s no room for everyone.

“Margie!” she calls as she approaches; Margie doesn’t pause, so she reaches out and grabs her arm.

But Margie tosses her off and keeps going, raving about the ridiculousness of this for god sakes,  _ we are a hospital! _

As if war has ever been fair, as if mankind hasn’t constantly been tearing down the imaginary barriers of the rules of warfare. Jyn doesn’t give a damn for perceived rules; no one has ever played by the rules in her life. Why would they even pretend to during war time?

She tackles Margie, right as she reaches for the door.

She shoves her to the side and wrestles her to the ground, wrapping her arms around her middle as Margie struggles to kick her aside and stand up.

“Margie,  _ stop! _ ” Jyn demands again, and that’s when the door bursts open and another gurney is marched in, a man unconscious and bleeding.

And Margie stops.

Strung up by stress and anxiety and responsibility, Margie finally collapses and breaks down into tears.

Jyn shifts her restraining hold into a hug, and Margie’s head falls on her shoulder.

Around them, nothing changes. Their scene goes unnoticed.

Because there are men, wounded, laying in beds and cots and on the floor.

There are doctors, reviewing charts, checking on patients, focused on treatment.

There are nurses, administering drugs, making patients more comfortable, cleaning and serving and tending and seeing to any other tasks that the 48th Surgical Hospital requires of them.

Jyn and Margie sit on the concrete floor of a converted civilian hospital in Arzew, Algeria, surrounded already by war, and the most surreal task Jyn has undertaken so far is having to tackle her peer, an unarmed woman, to stop her from running into sniper fire.

None of them were prepared. 

How could they be?

The sniper fire continues to fall like rain.

#

Actual rain comes soon enough, swooping in with December to drench the entire encampment. It provides some cover from enemy fire, but pelts the roof and windows with more furor and noise. 

And it turns the ground to mud.

Jyn stands at the window of the breakroom, staring out into the quagmire before her. In some places, the most trafficked, direct routes between buildings and tents, engineers have laid crushed gravel. But the ground is still sleek and wet and the rain pummels down and she stays, sipping mediocre coffee, wondering how long she can delay returning to her tent.

“I thought I dismissed you half an hour ago.”

She doesn’t move, just listens as Dr. Malbus’ heavy footsteps approach until she sees him out of the corner of her eye.

“Can’t sleep,” she says.

“I wouldn’t expect so,” he says, voice low and tired-sounding. He gestures to her coffee. “You’re no good to us strung out. Get some rest.”

She sighs and turns her head completely to the side, away from Dr. Malbus’ view, to gaze out at the dark night sky. She wants to see the stars; she’d settle for the moon. 

“Is this about that letter?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He clears his throat and she looks down at her hands. One clutches her tin cup. The other clutches an already-worn, folded piece of paper. She’s only had it a week, since the letters finally came in. Some lieutenant received twenty-eight pieces of mail. Excessive. She had only the one, with five quick sentences scratched in a familiar hand. It was all she needed.

She slips it back into her left breast pocket, where she’s been keeping it.

“Never took you for sentimental, Erso,” Dr. Malbus says.

She finally looks at him. “How’s the professor?”

Dr. Malbus grunts. 

She met Dr. Malbus early on after her enlistment, trained under him before debarkation. Though she’s known him for less than a year, she appreciates his usual unobtrusive, one-word style of conversation.

Tonight’s atypical attempt at meddling or, at the very least, nosiness, seems suspiciously more like the behavior of his ‘close personal friend,’ Professor Chirrut Imwe. She’s no psychologist, and would prefer not to think too hard on it, but the coffee is making her brain work and she can’t help but conclude that her mentor is emulating his partner as a way of feeling closer to him.

“Causing all sorts of trouble, no doubt,” Dr. Malbus mutters.

“And you miss it,” she says.

He shakes his head. “I just shudder to think what I’ll come back to.”

She laughs at this. 

Baze reaches for the coffee pitcher and pours himself a cup. “So where is he?” he says. “Or she?”

“He never says,” she says, before she can stop herself, and she curses her brain and the coffee.

Honestly, she should count her blessings that Dr. Malbus hasn’t pulled it out of her sooner.

She sighs and takes a long sip from her coffee; it’s stale and lukewarm by now. “Somewhere in Europe,” she says. 

“Special ops?” 

She shrugs. “I guess so.”

“How long?”

She frowns, turns back to him. “How long what?”

“Have you been together?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “No, it’s not like that—we didn’t—we’re just friends.”

Dr. Malbus fails to hide his smirk behind his cup before taking a sip. “Sure,” he says, shaking his head and bringing his cup down.

Just because she carries his letter around—just because the paper is nearly fraying—she’s got nothing else to do, does she?

“Did you tell him you love him?”

“I don’t—”

Dr. Malbus groans and rolls his eyes. “You’re smarter than that.”

“Sir—”

“Erso,” Dr. Malbus says. “Get some sleep.”

#

Toweled off, laying on her cot, thirty minutes later, Jyn stares up at the roof of her tent. 

She can barely even see it at all in the dark, just a shadowed blur of a backdrop, and if she lets her eyelids fall shut just a little, she can almost pretend it’s a cloudy sky.

If she slips into that little space between dreaming and awake, she can see the orange glow of lamplight and the fall of snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jyn is a member of the [48th Surgical / 128th Evacuation Hospital](https://www.med-dept.com/unit-histories/48th-surgical-128th-evacuation-hospital/), pretty badass ladies and I highly recommend reading more about them. They were in fact present for Operation TORCH D-Day, where the nurses waded ashore with the rest of the assault troops. 
> 
> When I first brainstormed this idea, I kind of worried about making Jyn a nurse; there are certainly many stereotypes that go with that. But the Army Nurse Corp and particularly the hospital that I chose for Jyn were on the front lines. Combined with the medical expertise needed, and Jyn's family background of scientists, I inevitably fell in love with the idea and here we are.
> 
> Oh, and that scene with Margie is based on an event that actually happened, described in [this history](https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/72-14/72-14.HTM) of the Army Nurse Corps:
>
>> The Army nurses who participated in the North African invasion at first had little conception of the realities of battle and were unfamiliar with military procedures. One nurse at the Arzew hospital became so incensed at snipers firing into the windows of the hospital and endangering the patients that she had to be forcibly restrained from going outside to "give them a piece of her mind." 


	5. 1943

Snow falls on a cobblestone street. It crunches beneath his feet like whispers, collects on his shoulders. Snow is soft and light and cold, and it’ll crush a man, up here in these mountains, if he falls in the path of an avalanche.

There’s little chance of that now, he thinks (he hopes). 

And there’s little chance of a massive crowd, too.

He navigates through the brightly lit town square, through what likely constitutes a meager crowd of people for this Christmas market, until he reaches the other side. Just once, he glances over his shoulder, sees only hesitant laughter from children, careful awe at the light displays and falling snow, strained smiles on red faces. 

War spares nothing, not even Christmas tradition. Especially not Christmas tradition.

A block or so out, he reaches that special area on the edge, where people linger but don’t gather. He won’t stand out here, but he also won’t be bothered by casual passersby.

He slips down a narrow alley; it provides little protection from the precipitation.

He can’t escape that snow.

His agent is already waiting for him, shivering and dancing at the back of the alley, hugging himself in the cold.

“Where have you been?” he says. Cassian can barely see his face in the lack of light, but the shock of red hair stands out enough.

“I came as fast as I could,” Cassian says. This remote little village, nestled in the crook of two mountains, required a long, treacherous journey up icy roads. He had to abandon his car about three quarters of the way up. 

“I was about to leave,” Tivik says, and Cassian laments that this will likely be the most social interaction he gets this weekend, this Christmas, and that it has to be this man, this coward, who can barely spare ten minutes.

“You have news from Kohnstein?” he says.

Tivik eyes him for a second, looking away and back again, at the shadows in the alley. Finally he sighs.

“The underground facility,” he says. “It’s almost finished. They’re preparing to move over V-2 production.”

They’d guessed as much. Did he really come all this way for this?

“That’s it?” he says, and he shifts his weight slightly. He’s not large; tall, sure, but he knows how to fill up space with his presence. “You called me here. Tell me you’ve got more than that.”

Tivik shrinks back under Cassian’s gaze. “One of the scientists…” he starts. “The engineers. He’s got—secrets.”

“Don’t they all,” Cassian grumbles. “What’s the point?”

“He’ll pass secrets,” Tivik says.

“What  _ kind _ of secrets?” Cassian says slowly, through gritted teeth.

“Anything—production quantities. Distribution routes. Storage warehouses. Schematics.”

“Schematics,” Cassian repeats, the word coming out almost like breath. He raises his voice. “Why will he do this? Who is he?”

“He—he wants us to get him out,” Tivik says, backing up against the wall, putting up his hands. “He says he’s been trying to find a way for  _ years _ . He’s desperate. He’ll give us anything. He’ll sabotage production. My contact says he’s already delayed it as long as he can.”

Cassian stares Tivik down as if he’s facing this scientist himself, and he knows this is foolish, knows better than to punish the messenger, but what a risk this man asks for and for such a reward. He can’t help his frustration. Kohnstein. They couldn’t arrange a mission to Kohnstein; it was hard enough for Cassian to find his way  _ here _ , in the Italian Alps.

“Who?” Cassian repeats. “Who is this?”

The name strikes him like an avalanche.

#

Certain items Cassian never carries on his person; and that is why, when he closes his eyes, he sees Jyn’s letter, memorized.

It seems these days, he so rarely closes his eyes.

He does so now, at this quiet inn. He’s itching to leave, itching to get out of here, and that had been the plan.

But his feet are cold and slow and the night is dark and his car so very far away.

And it’s Christmas.

He checks into an inn after leaving Tivik. The clerk just eyes him warily, but says very little. Cassian can pass for Italian when he has to; he adopts the accent and can handle the quick exchange, though he wouldn’t say he’s fluent. 

He never thought, when he’d enlisted all those years ago, that he’d wind up carrying out missions like this. He’d always envisioned something more straightforward, something more obviously us versus them, a line in the sand, a clear delineation, a set of rules. 

He thinks Jyn would laugh at him, if she’d ever known that fifteen-year-old boy.

Oh, Jyn.

What is she going to think of him now?

He wonders what General Draven will say, when he delivers this intel. 

Evacuate a known weapons scientist, from the heart of Germany?

Never.

Even running a spy network all the way to Galen Erso might risk exposing them too much. Dogwood might try to set up a chain, but Cassian has his doubts about the reliability of that method; thinks it’ll fall apart soon enough.

And he knows Draven shares his concerns.

He rubs his face and lays back on his bed. Stares out at the falling snow, at the shadowy peaks beyond.

Now is a time for watching, not for resting or sleeping and certainly not for dreaming. 

And how can he dream—how is it fair to her, to dream—when he knows, undoubtedly, what his mission will be. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next month.

This intel can only lead to one end.

_ This is why _ , he thinks _ , this is why he couldn’t let her know.  _

But he cannot stop himself.

He closes his eyes. And remembers her last letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeknownst to Jyn, Cassian was recruited to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) shortly after its establishment in June 1942. As the US' first real spy operation, the OSS was mostly trained by British intelligence. Lanning "Packy" Macfarland oversaw OSS operations in Istanbul and hired Alfred Schwarz, known as "Dogwood." He established an information chain that allowed them to infiltrate anti-fascist groups in Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Though initially this resulted in a lot of information for the US' fledgling spy operations, by May 1944, British intelligence and Washington grew skeptical of the reliability of this info. 
> 
> Kohnstein is a hill / mine that housed the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory. It's pretty located smack dab in the middle of Germany.


	6. 1944

Jyn watches as they wheel the gurney past the screens. The surgery is done; Dr. Malbus’ prognosis is optimistic, but they can hear artillery fire. For every soldier they save on the operating table, how many more die on the field?

“Erso,” Dr. Malbus says from the sink. “Go check on new arrivals.”

The bloodbath at Malmédy still fresh in her mind, she nods and braces herself as she follows the gurney’s path past the screens.

She finds only the aisles of beds, crammed in row by row, as many as they could fit in what is practically a glorified shack. (She’s worked in worse, of course, the memories of Arzew two years old and still very fresh, how she’d held up a flashlight for Dr. Malbus to operate in a tent only just large enough for all of them. So she’s not complaining about the glorified shack, of course she isn’t.)

What she’d expected to see—stretchers, frantic soldiers and nurses flowing through the doors—isn’t there. But the last surgery had been long, and it seems, blessedly, the chaos has at least temporarily died down in the meantime.

Before she can even suggest to herself the possibility of rest, she spots headlights, piercing through the deep black of late night. 

And it’s not from the south side of the building, the gravel road that had, earlier, been lined with trucks and paramedics, hauling stretchers.

The lights come from the north side.

The grassy field that serves as a landing strip.

She’s rushing towards this door, through the rows of beds, when someone stands up, blocks her path.

“Excuse me,” the woman says, and though her words are polite they sound anything but. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re in the middle of a war,” Jyn says, trying to push past her, but the woman grabs her arm.

Jyn looks down—the woman is shorter than her, long brown hair braided tightly at the back of her head, brown eyes glaring up with a sentiment very familiar to Jyn. And she notices the press badge around her neck.

“Malmédy,” she says.

“Massacre,” Jyn answers automatically. She glances down at the bed the woman is standing next to, sees a pilot they’d treated the day before. He’s sleeping now, but he’ll be alright. They ought to evacuate him, really; there’s no need to keep him here. “Friend of yours?” she asks.

“Brother,” the woman says, although it seems half a question, even to her.

Jyn narrows her eyes. “Who are you?”

“Leia Organa,” she says offering her hand. “With the Associated Press.”

Frowning, Jyn says, “Are you related to—”

“The senator, yes,” she says, nodding. Leia looks down at the bed. “Luke’s a—well, a long lost twin, actually.”

“Really,” Jyn says, her frown deepening. This is a mystery  _ someone  _ ought to solve, but some reporter sneaking in to find a lost lover or something is barely concerning to her. She wants to see what’s on that plane; the daily struggle to locate supplies seems to be an ever-losing battle, although they’ve made do well enough, somehow.

“Listen,” Jyn says, “I don’t really care. But your lover is probably about to board that plane that just came in, and I need to check—”

“Brother,” Leia corrects. “How can I help?”

“Stay out of the way,” Jyn says. Leia steps aside and Jyn finally moves past her, but Leia quickly follows in her heels.

“What do you know about Malmédy?” she asks again. To her credit, she does not, technically, impede Jyn’s strides towards the north entrance.

“You’re not going to ask about your— _ brother _ ?” Jyn asks, not even looking Leia’s way.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Leia wave a hand. “I was already briefed on his condition. I heard his surgery went well.”

“It did,” Jyn says. She’d been there. She’d also done his post-op check up; the man was a regular ray of sunshine, even despite everything he’d been through. She’d resented it at first, but he’d grown on her. 

“Chirrut would like this one,” Dr. Malbus had grumbled, when they had walked out of earshot. She patted his arm and nodded and said nothing, and moved on with her routine.

“Like I said,” Jyn continues, as they reach the door. “He’s probably going on this plane.”

The door opens for several soldiers, already carrying boxes of supplies. Jyn is not religious, but she knows Cassian grew up Catholic, and she thanks god anyways as she watches them come in, before pushing past them out the door.

There’s a man, his back to her, signing something on a clipboard. She can tell he’s part of the crew by his uniform; she hurries up, taps his shoulder. 

“You have the manifest?” she asks.

He whirls around.

She gasps.

“Bodhi!”

The clipboard clatters to the ground as they both reach for each other. 

She tries to pause the world, at least for a minute, tries to focus only on the warmth of his embrace.

And then she pulls away.

“Yes,” he says, picking up the clipboard. At least he found a dry bit of ground to drop it on. He looks it over, picking up where he left off, checking something off and then adding another signature. “Here.”

She takes it, watching his face.

“How long has it been?” he says.

“Five or six months, maybe,” she says, shrugging. She knows, precisely, the last date she’d seen him. 

“Normandy,” he whispers.

She nods and can’t say anything following this. She’d been the first 128th Army Evacuation Hospital nurse to wade ashore. She’d waited days for supply relief. Bodhi had appeared several times that month, the most she’d seen him all war, and so for more than just strategic reasons, the month of June had marked a turning point for Jyn Erso.

“You heard from Cassian?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Not since…”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Jyn.”

“Ahem.”

They both turn to Leia.

“You might want to check out what’s going on inside—”

Lights gleam in through the windows on the opposite of the building and she can hear muffled shouts through the open door next to her. 

“Bodhi, I—”

He nods. “Go on.”

Clipboard in hand, she mutters, “Excuse me,” and hurries inside.

“Dorothy,” she says, flagging down a nurse even as she crosses the building. She hands her the clipboard. “Shipment manifest. Check the inventory.” Dorothy nods. “What’s going on? Another wave of—”

“Just one,” Dorothy says, fingers pale against the clipboard. “Well, two if you count the—well, see for yourself.”

There’s a crowd gathering by the front door. She tries to shove her way through, but Dr. Malbus pulls her aside.

“One more surgery, Erso,” he says. “I need you to prep.”

Sparing one more glance towards the crowd, she follows him back into surgery. “What’s the fuss? Is this some general or something?”

Dr. Malbus clutches a clipboard in his hand. “Not exactly.” He looks back at her, his voice quiets. “He’s a Nazi deserter, Jyn.”

She meets his eyes at the sound of her first name. “Who is he?” she asks.

“I don’t have many more details than that,” Dr. Malbus says. “They won’t give his name. There’s an OSS officer with him, also badly hurt. They were at Malmédy when we bombed it—” Jyn scoffs and he pauses. “Listen,” he says. “I know I can trust you.”

“He’s important,” she says.

“Out of the way!” someone barks. The crowd scatters, parting to reveal two soldiers struggling with a gurney. A blanket covers the patient, but when she sees him—Baze’s words, ringing in her head—she doesn’t know how she knows, but she does.

“I can trust you, Jyn,” Dr. Malbus repeats, and of course he doesn’t know, can’t know. Dr. Malbus is like—like an older brother, to her, but she’s never told him everything. She’s only told everything to one person.

She watches, frozen, as two nurses wheel over an empty gurney, as they chant “1… 2… 3…,” as the mystery deserter is transferred over.

“Jyn,” Baze says. The operating area is just behind them, just pass the screen.

“I can’t help on this,” she says quietly. 

“You have to,” he says, his tone shifting. “You’re one of the few I trust on such a delicate operation, Erso.”

He’s warning her.

She looks over at him with wide eyes.

“There’s a conflict of interest,” she says.

“He’s a Nazi,” Dr. Malbus says, his voice still low but full of venom. “There’s a conflict of interest for  _ everyone _ here. But we’re doctors, it’s our job to make sure he lives. I need you—”

“He’s my father.”

Dr. Malbus looks at her like she’s finally lost her mind.

The gurney wheels past them.

She can’t bare to look and she tries to convince herself that she doesn’t need to, because she already knows.

But she looks.

She returns to the operating area, steps next to the table.

“Stardust?”

She sucks in a shaky breath. One hand goes to her mouth; the other, of its own volition, goes to his hand.

God, but he’s so pale and thin. Who is this man wearing the skin of her father?

“Stardust?” he asks again.

She leans down and through the blur of her tears, his face shifts into one she recognizes.

“Papa,” she says. 

Behind her, Dr. Malbus mutters words in Chinese that are familiar enough by now for her to know them as an expletive.

“I did what I could,” he says, his voice rattling and faint. “To delay…”

“Erso, dismissed,” Dr. Malbus orders. “Get her out of here.”

Someone pulls her away.

Her father’s hand slips from her grasp.

#

The chair is hard and uncomfortable beneath her; that is the first observation she makes regarding the external world.

She shifts, looks up from behind her hands.

The hospital is as normal as it ever can be. Still rows of patients. Still nurses darting between them, checking on their comfort.

On the far end of the room, she spots Bodhi talking to that reporter.

It occurs to her, what Dr. Malbus said. “...an OSS officer with him, also badly hurt…”

She laughs aloud, manically, because what kind of world would give her such a reunion on—it must be Christmas by now, mustn’t it?

Bodhi looks up at the sharp sound, looks right at her, and she sees his frown and the concern and confusion swirling in his eyes. Just as rudely as she must have left him, he leaves the reporter, heading straight to her.

“Captain Erso.”

She looks up at one of her nurses. Betty. 

“Your presence has been requested,” she says softly, cautiously. Jyn glances towards the screen behind her.

“No,” Betty says, gesturing towards a different screen. “The officer.”

Numb, she stands, follows Betty.

“Jyn.” There he is, sitting up from the gurney. Two pairs of hands push him back down. 

“Sir,” someone says. “Please settle down.”

He pushes their hands away.

She steps forward, still numb, and somewhere at the back of her mind, two voices are arguing. One reminds her she should be thrilled, ecstatic, that she should take his hand or hug him or even kiss him, it’s about time after all—and the other insists she’s dreaming, she’s hallucinating from too many long hours and too many cups of office.

He reaches for her instead, when her feet halt at his bedside. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees his entire left leg enclosed in a cast, sees bandages around his abdomen; she’ll process this information later, but for now, she only sees the intensity of his gaze.

He brings his hand up to her face, brushes her cheek, and says nothing. It seems he’s used up all his energy just fighting his nurses, asking for her, reaching for her

“He’s…” he says. His hand drops to the bed. “He tried…” He takes a deep breath and he closes his eyes. “Forgive us.” 

“Cassian,” she finally says, but he doesn’t respond.

At last she takes in the cast, the bandages.

“What is…” she starts.

And again, forceful hands guide her out of the operating room.

She stumbles out into the main room, thinking only,  _ of course _ ; of course, she gets a Christmas reunion only when it comes with the risk of— 

“Jyn.”

She looks up and Bodhi is there.

“It’s Cassian,” she says, nodding. “It’s Cassian, and my…”

Over Bodhi’s shoulder, she sees the reporter, watching with interest.

Bodhi pulls her into a hug.

“It’s my father,” she whispers into his ear.

His embrace goes rigid. 

“Here?” he says, pulling away, searching her face. “I thought—you told me he died.”

“I  _ implied _ …” she trails off. “It’s a long story.”

“They said he defected,” Bodhi says. “Jyn, is he a…”

“Quiet!” she says. She looks away. “Yes.”

Bodhi looks in the opposite direction, out at the rows of beds. “Wow.” He looks back at her. “Merry Christmas,” he mutters.

“Ma’am—this is a surgery.” Jyn looks up to see the reporter, bothering someone standing outside Cassian’s ‘room.’ 

“Who the hell is she, anyways?” Bodhi asks.

Jyn shakes her head. “She says she’s a reporter for the AP,” she says. “I don’t know.”

She sighs and rubs her face, opens her eyes again to find the reporter standing in front of her.

Jyn braces herself for another assault of questions.

“You alright?” she asks.

“I’m—fine,” Jyn says, glancing at Bodhi.

“I know how I looked when I heard about Luke,” the woman says. Leia, Jyn reminds herself, she’d given her name. “You do a good impression.” Jyn stares. “You still on duty?”

Thinking of the firm grips on her arms, of being dragged out of the operating room, Jyn shakes her head. Dr. Malbus had dismissed her.

“Got anything to eat around here?”

#

The breakroom has little but stale coffee, and the three of them help themselves to that.

“I’m supposed to fly out at oh five hundred,” Bodhi says. 

Jyn nods idly, sipping from a cold tin.

“Luke’s going on that ride?” Leia asks.

Jyn nods. 

“I’ve heard some gruesome stories,” Leia says, “about these evacuation planes.”

“Bodhi flies a C-54,” Jyn says mildly. “Not the flying coffin.”

“Alright,” Leia says. 

“He’s in good hands,” Jyn insists.

“I can see that,” Leia says softly. “You were present for his surgery?”

Jyn nods.

And she doesn’t know how Leia does it, but ten minutes later, she’s told the woman everything she knows about Luke Skywalker: every interaction, every laugh he incited in the staff around him, the hope and belief that, even as the Germans push forward, this is the end of things. Or the beginning of the end.

Leia smiles.

“So,” Jyn says. “When’s the wedding?”

“He’s my  _ brother _ ,” Leia says. Jyn snorts into her cup.

“Right,” she says, smirking. “You’re the daughter of Senator Organa from  _ California _ , and the farmboy from Nebraska is your twin brother.” She pauses. “I don’t care how you lied your way in here. It’s cool.”

“I was adopted,” Leia says. “We were separated. I only just found out the last time we talked.”

“That’s quite a story,” she says. 

“Speaking of stories,” Leia says. She shifts her demeanor as she shifts in her chair, leaning forward. “I’ve overheard a few things.”

Any feelings of friendliness evaporate. Leia is the daughter of a politician, after all, and Jyn frowns into her coffee mug. Of course. Comradery and coffee—not an original strategy at all, for digging for information.

“It gets rather noisy in here,” Jyn says. “Can’t really trust what you hear. Or think you hear.”

“An OSS officer, a defected Nazi weapons scientist…”

(And where did she even hear that?)

“...and somehow, you have a connection to both of them.” Leia’s expression is calm and neutral as she watches Jyn. “Now  _ that’s  _ a story.”

“As a reporter,” Jyn says, voice stiff, “your job is to write facts, not fiction.”

Bodhi squirms in his seat. “I’m going to make another pot…” he says.

“Tell me what happened at Malmédy.”

“Or…”

“Or I’ll publish a story about a Nazi war scientist smuggled over enemy lines,” she says, “to aid the U.S. missile program.”

Jyn’s eyes widen. “You don’t know…”

Leia shrugs. “I know that a badly wounded OSS officer brought in a badly wounded Nazi war scientist. I know that we’re at the beginning of the end of things,” she adds, “as my brother apparently put it. I know—a few other confidentialities. I’m telling you now why the OSS sent that officer to rescue him. Why they didn’t shoot him on the spot.” She pauses. “It’s going to start happening more often, I’ll wager.”

As she listens, Jyn raises her coffee to her lips, takes a long sip. Leia is probably bluffing. She wouldn’t want to publish any kind of story that might cast the U.S. in a bad light. But still, when she sets down her empty cup, she meets Leia’s eyes, finally. “Malmédy. What do you want to know?”

“A war crime?”

“Well…” Jyn shakes her head, exasperated, and holds up her hands. “Yeah. I’m not a—whatever. But yeah.”

“You don’t want to talk it.”

_ No shit, Sherlock _ , Jyn thinks.

“You were there.”

Jyn shakes her heads. “No, but we were close enough, we took in some survivors.”

Jyn tells her what she knows.

#

“Your sister is certainly something,” Jyn sends, two hours later, as she’s checking on Luke. Leia has disappeared to some corner, presumably to write. Jyn thinks.

Luke snorts. “What’d she do now?”

Jyn smirks, inflates the cuff around his arm. She doesn’t answer him, instead focused on taking his blood pressure. When she finishes, as the cuff deflates, she looks up.

“So she is your sister, then?”

“Yea.” He laughs. “She didn’t believe it at first, either.”

“Separated at birth,” she says, shaking her head.

“We all have our stories, don’t we,” Luke says, and he smiles slightly, but it’s the softness and kindness in his eyes that catches her off guard. She clears her throat and looks away.

“How’s your cast?” She gestures to his right arm.

“Oh, you know,” he says, “pretty great. I was looking for a new fashion accessory.”

She rolls her eyes.

“It’s a little itchy, I guess.”

“Okay,” she says, chuckling politely.

“How’s your friend?” Luke asks. With his good hand, he points several beds down and several rows over, where Cassian is engaged in his own post-op check up, with another nurse.

As if sensing her, he glances back, smiles.

“Seems fine,” she says carefully. She’s already read his chart, briefed the nurses and doctor in his surgery. She knows his prognosis. She knows he’ll be leaving on the plane with Bodhi.

Her eyes linger a second longer after Cassian turns back to his nurse.

“What’s  _ your  _ story?” he asks.

“Would you believe it if I told you he was  _ my  _ brother?”

Luke laughs; someone next to him groans at the sudden sharp sound.

“No?” Jyn smiles.

“Not for a second,” Luke says. “Not the way you look at each other.”

“I—what? We don’t—look at each other in any particular way.” 

“Right,” Luke says.

“We don’t.”

“Sure.”

“Listen, Commander Skywalker,” Jyn says.

“I’m listening,” he says, grinning, waiting patiently.

Jyn raises her hand. Stares.

“Go on,” Luke says.

When Jyn still doesn’t say anything, Luke continues. “Let me guess. You met before the war. Never confessed your love for each other. Barely see each other. And you’re longing to abandon me and go talk him.”

“That is…” she starts. “Only partially true.”

Luke laughs. She resents it. And she thinks of a different conversation she had before she left, one afternoon she’d had tea with Dr. Malbus and Professor Imwe. Chirrut really would love Luke Skywalker.

“I don’t know how you could be brave enough to serve on the front lines,” Luke says, “and not brave enough to love someone.”

The laughter is gone from his face; and Jyn’s own embarrassed smile fades, too. 

“He doesn’t…” Jyn starts.

“There,” Luke says, pointing towards Cassian again. “The way he looks at you.”

She looks over again, sees Cassian staring, and he quickly looks back to the nurse when she catches him.

“That’s just his face,” she says.

“Keep looking,” Luke says. 

She watches as he talks to the nurse.

“But he’s always…”

“Hey.”

They both look up, find Bodhi hovering over them.

“Malbus is out of surgery,” he says, pointedly. It’s not specifically Dr. Malbus that he’s referring to, but Jyn catches his meaning. “We’ve got two hours until take off. Gonna start loading.”

“Luke,” Jyn says, “this is…”

“Your brother,” Luke says, and Jyn actually glares at him. Are he and his sister some supernatural beings sent to plague her?

“Bodhi Rook,” he says, offering a hand before he realizes Luke can’t quite meet his grasp. But Luke reaches around awkwardly with his left and shakes it. 

“Luke Skywalker.”

“I’m the pilot,” Bodhi says. 

“Thank you for your service,” Luke says. 

“Don’t thank me just yet.” Bodhi fiddles with his gloves. “I’m not actually Jyn’s brother,” he corrects. “We just grew up together.”

“Alright,” Luke says.

“Guess you don’t know everything,” Jyn says.

Luke snorts. “I’ll give you that one,” he says. “But I do know that man is in love with you.”

“What—you told him about Cassian?” Bodhi asks.

“I told him nothing,” Jyn says.

“Is that his name?” Luke gestures, yet again, towards Cassian’s bed.

“Yes—listen, don’t even bother. They’ve been dancing around each other for  _ five  _ years. It’s hopeless.”

“Nothing’s hopeless,” Luke says, and Jyn doesn’t believe how this man with his earnest farmboy sincerity could possibly pick up on so much, but then, she ought to know better than to judge superficialities.

“Five years,” Bodhi repeats. “Five years of agony.”

Jyn tosses a gauze pad at him. “For the pain.

“I’m going to go check on…” she trails off. “Dr. Malbus,” she finishes.

“Don’t worry about me then,” Luke says.

She rolls her eyes. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll keep you company,” Bodhi offers.

“Prognosis revised—hang in there, Skywalker,” Jyn says as she rises from her perch on Luke’s bed.

#

They keep him in a separate room, away from the rest of the patients, an old office cleared out for particularly sick or injured patients.

The door closes behind her with a soft click.

Dr. Malbus looks up. 

“He’ll be alright,” he says, in answer to the question on her face. “He’s sleeping now.”

She nods, and settles into a chair next to him—her father.

If possible, he seems even smaller than he had before, on that gurney. “What—what was…”

“Shot in the back,” Dr. Malbus says. “Jyn, I’m… not sure he’ll walk again,” he adds softly.

She watches the rise and fall of his chest.

“But he’ll live?” she asks faintly.

“It seems so.”

Dr. Malbus hooks the clipboard onto the edge of the bed.

“When I was eight,” Jyn hears herself say. “A… colleague of my father’s showed up at our doorstep. He wore a Nazi armband. We were living…” she waves her hand. “Somewhere in rural England, I don’t know. It was the late 20s. He showed up, and my mother… we left out the backdoor. It was late at night. I don’t remember—we rode the train for awhile. To London. My mother handed me off to a family friend. She said she’d meet us in New York. She never did. We got on a ship, Saw and I. And that was it.”

She pauses. Dr. Malbus has come around the other side of the bed. He rests a hand on her shoulder. “I never found out what happened,” she says. “I liked to assume he was dead.”

Her father’s chest rises and falls. Rises and falls.

“The OSS officer,” Dr. Malbus starts. “You know him, too?”

She turns sharply to face him. “You…”

“I heard one of the nurses mention your reunion.” He gazes down at her. “It’s your boyfriend, isn’t it?”

“He’s not—”

Baze smiles. “Hell of a reunion,” he says. He hesitates. “Shame you can’t be with both of them. There’s not enough room…”

“It’s fine, Baze,” she says.

“Listen,” Baze says, “Your father is under a heavy dose of morphine. He’s not waking up before take off. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Go on, Jyn,” he says. “I promise to call you if he wakes up. He won’t, but just in case.”

#

“I’ve already…” Cassian starts, as she settles next to his good leg. “Oh. Hello, Jyn.”

Under his gaze, the shy smile he offers her, she feels, for the first time in months,  _ warm _ . “Hi, Cassian.”

“Listen,” he says, leaning forward slightly and wincing. 

“You shouldn’t move too much,” she says, helping him settle back against his pillows. 

He sighs. “Listen,” he starts again. “You should know. Your father…”

“Shh. We don’t have to talk about this.”

He takes her hand. “He did what he could, Jyn. Delays. Sabotage. He’s been passing secrets for the last year.”

“Alright.”

“Jyn,” he says. He’s fighting the morphine, she can tell. “I need to tell you something.”

“We don’t have to talk about my father, Cassian, really, I…”

“No,” he says, shaking his head, and he starts to sit up again, but she squeezes his hand, and he stops.

They stare at each other, silent.

And then, finally, she sees it.

The way he looks at her.

How he’s always looked at her.

How she’s always looked at him.

Like the morning sun rising after a long night.

And so, before she can overthink it, before she can stop herself, she leans down and kisses him.

#

Jyn oversees the boarding of patients onto Bodhi’s plane. In the five hours since he’s landed, all the cargo has been removed, anti-vibration slings installed. Three rows of four, stacked up along each wall of the plane, fitting twenty-four patients, for this journey. She’s seen them fit thirty-two.

“One… two… three…” two soldiers lift a patient and secure him onto the middle row.

“Captain Erso,” a nurse says at her side. “I’ve stowed your bag, is there anything else—”

She looks over her shoulder, sees Cathy standing idly.

“My bag?” she asks. “I’m not on this flight.”

Cathy frowns. “Doctor Malbus told me to fetch it for you. Since you’re busy, he said.”

“Doctor…” Jyn looks up and sees him standing at the bottom of the ramp. Catching her glance, he walks forward. 

“I pulled a few strings,” he says. “Margaret offered to switch.”

“But…” The protest fades. She doesn’t really have one in her.

“Someone ought to be with family this holiday.”

Lip quivering, she reaches out and hugs him before tears can fall.

“Thank you, Baze,” she whispers.

He pats her back. “Merry Christmas, little sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Battle of the Bulge is just getting underway in this chapter. The Malmédy Massacre was a war crime that occurred on December 17, 1944, when German soldiers killed 84 American prisoners of war. (Malmédy is in Belgium, btw.) [One source](http://www.historynet.com/massacre-at-malmedy-during-the-battle-of-the-bulge.htm) I read said:
>
>> And yet, but for the presence of an Associated Press correspondent there in early January 1945, it is doubtful that this terrible incident would have ever achieved international notoriety.
> 
> That correspondent was Hal Boyle, and his account was published in his January 1945 _Star and Stripes_ article. I decided to switch him out for Leia. (For the record, I'm somewhat meh about this source, consult wikipedia for more reason on Malmédy.) 
> 
> The 48th Surgical / 128 Evacuation Hospital were also present for D-Day. The fact that Jyn was present for both Operation TORCH D-Day and the Normandy D-Day invasion is based on another real person! And she would have arrived 4 days after the actual landing.
>
>> Although initially planned for 14 June, the FIRST Evacuation Hospital in Normandy disembarked at 1530 hours, at Utah Beach on 10 June 1944, setting up the next day near Boutteville (where it would stay until 22 June), about 6 miles from the coast. Lt. Margaret B. Stanfill claimed the honor to be the FIRST 128th Army Evacuation Hospital Nurse to wade ashore in Normandy, she was a 48th Surg Hosp Veteran having landed at Arzew, Algeria in 1942.
> 
> Like I said. Badass ladies.
> 
> Bodhi flies the Douglas C-54 Skymaster, a four-engine transport aircraft used in WWII and the Korean War. It was based on a civilian airliner. The "flying coffin" that Jyn refers to is the Curtiss C-46 Commando, also used for patient evacuations, and it received this nickname because its shape resembled a coffin and heater issues sometimes caused these planes to explode during flight. Yikes. Some pilots wouldn't turn on the heaters and nurses had to improvise care for critically ill patients. Also, both of these transports planes, along with the Douglas C-47 Skytrain, were used in patient evacuations and doubled as cargo planes. Hence Bodhi bringing cargo and evacuating patients. Planes carrying cargo couldn't be marked with the Geneva Red Cross, risking exposure to enemy fire.
> 
> Finally... Galen is taken rather early for Nazi weapon development. The Nazi Party was founded in 1920 and started to see a big rise in 1928. It's a stretch, as far as I understand, to think there's already weapon planning at this stage, but *handwave* fiction.


	7. 1945

“One present. You can open one present.”

Jyn smiles as six-year-old Poe jumps up and practically dives into the tree.

“Slow down, kiddo,” his father says, laughing. He turns to Shara. “He gets this from you, you know,” he says.

“Says the paratrooper,” Shara says, rolling her eyes. But she’s grinning, too. 

It’s a little too much, for Jyn, still thinking of the forests of the Ardennes, of the sound of planes diving, of treating wounded paratroopers.

She excuses herself, winds her way through the crowded Bey household—really, she can’t believe how many people gather this Christmas Eve. She doesn’t think she’s ever been surrounded by this many people—this much laughter and joy—in her entire life. 

As a child, it’d been just her mother and father. She spots him near the window now, talking to Dr. Malbus and Professor Imwe. It’s still weird to her, him being around. Even in the couple months since she returned—to New York (after all these years, she still can’t quite say ‘returned home,’ not yet, at least)—she barely sees him. Just as Leia had suggested, he’s been recruited to some U.S. missiles program.  _ Not that one _ , he’s said, multiple times tonight. She’s not really sure that another program is all that better, and she can tell he’s not, either. He wants to retire. He wants to be done. But he also feels guilty for his past involvement in the war, and he lets his government bosses hold that over him.

As she got older, Christmas meant her and Bodhi and Saw and his cronies. (Bodhi told her Saw enlisted, too, that he died a war hero in the Pacific. She’s not keen on discussing it with him, but she can appreciate that, at least. That he did something right, in the end, something that saved lives.) Now, she can barely see Bodhi behind those crowding around him, Leia and Luke and Luke’s pilot friend Han, who hasn’t stopped hitting on Leia all night, and Han’s friend Lando, a celebrated Tuskegee airman, and several other of Luke’s pilot friends. Luke and Bodhi are telling the story of the night they met, the rough flight in the fog as they flew out of Belgium to London. 

That’d been the last of her war Christmases, and certainly there were plenty attendees at each of those, including Dr. Malbus, crowded around whatever makeshift fireplace or tree they’d cobbled together. Despite these larger gatherings, certainly more than occupy this townhouse now counting the patients, those had never felt cozy.

Not like this.

With the Bey’s charming, decorated household, warm food from the oven, shoulders brushing as everyone tries to navigate the narrow living space of the townhouse, more vertical than wide. Between Kes and Shara’s war friends and the Bey’s family friends, the house is practically stifling.

Even if someone is missing.

“Would you like a refill?” 

She looks up at Kay, who has been hovering behind her all night. 

(“I’ll accompany you,” Kay had said several hours ago, standing at her doorstep, apparently to escort her to the party. “Cassian said I had to.”)

“For the third time,” Jyn says, “I’m fine. I can serve myself.”

Cassian had sent a telegram earlier in the week, letting her know he wouldn’t make it for the party. He’s been held up in Washington, won’t say for what, but she guesses he’s needed for some sort of continuation of his work.

She’s not really sure what that might mean for them.

She hasn’t seen him, for a whole year, since that Christmas she spent at his bedside in London. She’d been granted leave for a couple days, in gratitude for her usually unyielding service. They hadn’t talked much about the future. Even then—at the beginning of the end, as Luke had called it—such discussions had seemed wildly premature.

Perhaps it’d only ever been the drugs, or the relief at being back in friendly territory, or just the respite from whatever it was that he did, that he couldn’t talk about. 

“He said he wouldn’t return until tomorrow at the earliest,” Kay says. “It’s pointless to keep watching the door.”

“I’m not—” She throws up her hands. “I’m going to get a refill.”

It only occurs to her when she’s halfway through the crowd that there might be an added benefit to letting Kay lead the way.

Ten minutes later, she surfaces on the other side, in the kitchen, and makes her way to the eggnog.

Where Melshi is pouring what she thinks is a second ladle’s full of ‘nog into his own cup. He grins widely when he sees her.

“Don’t think I’m serving you tonight,” he says.

“Is there any left to serve?” she asks, raising a brow.

He laughs. “I’ve got a bet with Kes,” he says.

She knows they served together, so she just smiles and nods and Melshi plunges back into the crowd. 

By the time she finishes pouring herself a drink, Kay has still not emerged behind her. Having shaken her tail, she uses the opportunity to slip into the backyard.

The cool night air is a blessing when she steps out, refreshing after the stuffiness of the Bey’s living room and kitchen. A light snow falls, but she doesn’t mind, and watches flakes fall into her drink. 

The largest, happiest crowd she’s ever seen gathered in her life, and still she’s escaped to be on her own.

_ Some habits… _ she thinks, with a shrug. She takes a big gulp of eggnog. 

The door slams behind her. 

“I’m  _ fine _ , Kay,” she yells, whirling around.

It’s Cassian, holding her coat.

“Yea…” he says. “He might have taken my request to keep you company a little too seriously.”

She launches herself into his arms.

The coat falls to the ground; eggnog sloshes in her cup, might even spill on the back of Cassian’s coat. Neither notice.

He holds her tight, lifts her off the ground, swings her around. Even in the cold night air, she can feel her cheeks flush. 

He stumbles slightly, and she remembers his bad leg as he settles her back down on the ground. 

“I missed you,” he says, tucking loose hair behind her ears, his fingertips lingering, tracing her jaw. He presses his forehead against her. Her fears that maybe she’d been wrong, that maybe he didn’t want her, dissipate. Mostly.

“I missed you,” she echoes. Bracing her free arm over his shoulder, her hand on the back of his neck, she leans up and kisses him, feels him smile into it.

“I thought you wouldn’t get back until tomorrow.”

He shrugs. “Sneaky spy trick, I guess.”

“You lied?” she asks, pretending to be exasperated.

“Guilty.”

She huffs, pulls away, and finally realizes she’s splashed her drink all over him. “Oh—sorry!”

“Consider us even then.” Gosh, she’s never seen him smile so much, in all the years they’ve known each other. (Years, yes, but then, she’s only ever seen him a few days at a time…)

Simultaneously, their smiles turn shy, they turn away from each other. 

Cassian clears his throat. “Kay told me you were out here. I brought your coat.” He picks it up, dusts off the snow, and holds it out for her.

She sets her drink down on a nearby patio table and he helps her put it on. 

“I must be crazy,” she says, “out here with all the…” she waves inside. “Partying. Inside.”

“Nah…” he says. “There’s no snow inside. I know you’re a fan.”

“Oh, no,” she says. “Don’t say it.”

He smirks. “I’m not saying anything.”

“Make fun of me for misspeaking years ago, go ahead.”

“I would never,” he says.

“Alright,” she says, rolling her eyes. “How did your meeting in Washington go?”

“Well,” he says. “They’re started something new. They want me to be a part of it.”

“Spying?”

Expression neutral, he gives a very curt nod.

“You’re going to take it?”

“I think so,” he says. “It depends…” 

She rubs her hands together and blows on them. “On what?”

He ignores her question. “Forgot your gloves?” he asks. “That’s not good for your hands, you know. Medically speaking.”

“Very funny,” she says, and she shoves her hands into her pockets.

And finds a box.

Her eyes go wide.

“What is…?”

She pulls it out, mouth hanging open, eyes darting between this little black box and Cassian’s dark eyes.

“Sneaky spy trick,” he says again, smiling.

There’s a beat then they both close the final distance between them—the last few feet of steps, inches of space—kissing as if they had never hesitated, as if they already knew each other this way, intimately, as if they’d been together this whole time. It’s not their first kiss, but it is the first that feels definite and permanent and part of something bigger, not tentative or fragile or questioning. 

When they finally pull apart, to catch their breath, she realizes she has to look  _ down  _ to see him—that he’s lifted her up onto that patio table, and the remainder of her eggnog has spilled completely, already freezing in the snow.

“Yes,” she says.

Again he rests his forehead against hers. “Yes?” he asks, and his rare smile is the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen. Even if his eyes are slightly scheming. “To what question?”

“To the question you were going to ask.”

His smile shifts, he raises his eyebrows. “Which was?”

“Well—” She looks at him, suddenly unsure. “Then—what was it?”

“Jyn Erso,” he says, “would you like to … see a movie together?”

“A—movie?” She frowns. “You want to see a movie?”

“I’d like to take you out,” he says, “on a proper date.”

“To a movie?”

“Or dinner, or dancing, whatever you prefer. I could even cook for you.”

She cocks her head to the side. Perhaps… they’ve never done this before. Perhaps this makes more sense. Perhaps she’d been too impulsive. (But then what was in the box?)

“When?”

“Any day. Every day. For the rest of our lives.”

She sees it again—the look on his face that Luke had pointed out—and how could she not have noticed it before then?

“Yes!” she says again, beaming. “I already told you. Yes!”

He closes his eyes, still smiling serenely, and takes a deep breath.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “It won’t be easy. And my job—I might have to travel. I could bring you, I already checked, so if you wanted to come—but if you didn’t…”

“Yes, Cassian,” she says, taking his chin in her hand and lifting his head. He opens his eyes to meet hers. “I’ll go with you.”

“I know your father…”

“We’ll figure it out,” she says quickly. “He’s trying—he doesn’t want to do that work, anymore.”

Cassian nods. “I see.”

“Bodhi’s got an offer from TWA,” she rambles on. “So he won’t be around much either…”

“Okay,” Cassian says, “that’s good to know.”

“I’m with you, Cassian,” she says, still holding his face. “All the way.”

His grin widens, brighter than any she’s ever seen.

She opens the box and slides on the ring.

#

Neighbors will complain about the Beys’ Christmas Eve party for years, specifically, but not limited to, their reputation for noise and longevity.

Their party in 1945 stands in particularly infamy, as the guests stay until dawn, laughing loudly, taking to heart the sentiment of a Merry Christmas.

One particular neighbor, sipping hot cocoa by her own bay window, frowns as she sees two party goers slam open the door and stumble out into the street.

They don’t seem to notice anything outside themselves. 

They simply walk, hand-in-hand, towards the sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassian is being recruited for the Central Intelligence Group, created in January 1946. It eventually becomes the CIA.
> 
> TWA is Trans World Airlines, a major American airline that expanded to serve Europe, the Middle East, and Asia after World War II.
> 
> One final reminder that -- yes, I know, my research was rushed, and this is a work of fiction. Please take any thing mentioned in the fic or my author's notes with a grain of salt! I am in *no way* an expert on this subject, and this is based on quick reading of... many many online sources. I honestly considered creating a Works Referenced for this. Anyways.
> 
> \--
> 
> Thank you for reading. @csectumsempra, I *really* hope you like this! I have learned a lot about WWII, and I really enjoyed learning, researching, and writing this for you. 
> 
> Happy Holidays!


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